Click the play button to listen to me speaking about my newest project, The Quotable Coach. This is an excerpt from my recent appearance on The Coaching Show with host Christopher McAuliffe. The audio lasts 1.35 minutes. If you prefer, you can read the transcript below instead.

Christopher: Let’s talk about a new project you’ve got going, called The Quotable Coach.

Barry: Well, that’s a pet project of mine. I actually purchased the domains TheQuotableCoach.com and QuotableCoach.com three years ago, because I intended to write the great American novel. Unfortunately my busy schedule prevented me from really digging in, but for the better part of the last 8 – 10 years, I have collected quotes and I probably have 5,000 to 10,000 of them.

I consider them brilliant pearls of wisdom. I love to read them because they’re quick nuggets – and I think that’s the way people are getting information these days, in little bite-sized chunks. I like to savor them, think about them, and go a little deeper.

So my thought was, maybe I could take some of the best and brightest minds of today and yesterday and critique and dig into some of those quotes in a way that might be relevant and useable today, and give the reader an exercise to take that idea and that concept into their life. That’s what I’ve been doing. TheQuotableCoach.com just went up this past week and I’ll be trying to get something up there every single day, Monday through Friday.

Christopher: Great. And you’re not just giving us the quote – which is useful in itself – but also a little anecdote, a place to look, something like that.

Barry: Exactly.

If you’d like to receive a daily quote (with a short commentary and exercise to help you dig in) then you sign up for free emails by putting your email address in the sidebar at The Quotable Coach.

All three of my workbooks are now available in .mobi and .epub form (for your Kindle, iPad, or other e-reader device or tablet) as well as .pdf.

The three workbooks are:

Masterful Relationships

This workbook teaches you how to:

• Listen actively – so that you get the most from conversations, and make other people feel valued
• Lead and coach others – help your employees to grow and achieve their full potential
• Gain trust – from your clients, colleagues, and new contacts

Masterful Networking

This workbook teaches you how to:

• Prepare effectively for networking events, so that you can make the most of your time there
• Make the most of your new contacts by following up after a conversation
• Improve your networking habits and make networking a key part of your business

Time Management Strategies and Tactics

This workbook teaches you how to:

• Work with your natural rhythm, not against it, and improve your energy levels
• Deal with calls and meetings – elements that often interrupt your day
• Keep up your motivation and maintain your enthusiasm and energy for your work

To download these free workbooks, just enter your first name and email address in the sidebar to the right. You’ll also receive new workbooks that I produce, as soon as they become available.

Barry Demp on The Coaching Show

I will be appearing on The Coaching Show on May 2nd (this Wednesday) at 11 a.m. Eastern / 8 a.m Pacific.

You can listen in here.

(If you can’t make it live, there will be a recording afterwards.)

The Coaching Show is aimed at both new and existing coaches who are looking to develop their career and business. I will be speaking about building a web presence through writing and SEO efforts, and about my exciting new project, The Quotable Coach.

You can listen to excerpts from my previous appearances on The Coaching Show here on my website.

If you are an iTunes user, you can search the iTunes store for “The Coaching Show” to find the most recent program and to subscribe for free to future interviews.

Masterful Relationships eBook ->

I am very pleased to announce that my newest workbook, Masterful Relationships, is now available in ebook form (as a .pdf file).

Just put your email address in the box in the sidebar to the right and you’ll receive a link to download your copy of Masterful Relationships, along with my previous two workbooks, Masterful Networking and Time Management Strategies and Tactics.

Masterful Relationships has seven short chapters, each with an exercise to help you put what you read into practice in your own life and work. The workbook focuses on professional relationships, but you can also use what you learn in your personal life.

Here’s a taste of what you’ll get inside

• Chapter 1: Listening Actively – how to be fully present in your conversations and show your interest in others
• Chapter 2: Serving Others – how to make a great impression and build on an initial connection
• Chapter 3: Demonstrating Loyalty and Integrity – how to live out your values in your relationships
• Chapter 4: Coaching, Leading and Managing – how to get the most from your employees and team members
• Chapter 5: Building Social Capital – how to create high-quality relationships and repair damaged ones
• Chapter 6: Networking Effectively – how to put in consistent effort for great results
• Chapter 7: Gaining Trust – how to help colleagues, clients and friends trust you

To get access to your copy of Masterful Relationships, just enter your email address in the sidebar.

This post is an excerpt from my upcoming workbook on Masterful Relationships.

“You ain’t learnin’ nothing’ when you’re doin’ all the talkin’.”

- Lyndon B. Johnson

People want to be listened to, respected, and understood. Listening draws people to you: value them and what they have to offer.

Knowing what people need and want are the keys to understanding them.  Anyone can take the time and make the effort to do this.

1. Demonstrate a positive attitude and genuine interest. Look for areas of common interest and go slowly to avoid being perceived as too aggressive or pushy.
2. People love to contribute. Let them share their thoughts and ideas. Be impressed and interested not impressive and interesting.
3. Be fully present.  Look at the speaker and make good eye contact. Be fully present.
4. Don’t interrupt. Use silence to give others the full opportunity to express themselves. “It’s just as rude to step on other people’s ideas as it is to step on their toes.” (Robert L. Montgomery)
5. Ask open ended questions and show your interest. Let others do 80% of the talking. When you ask for someone’s wisdom, advice or experience you’re creating the foundation for a potential relationship.
6. Always allow others to finish explaining their points of view, ideas, or conviction before offering your own.  Avoid “one upping” or trying to “out do” their ideas.
7. Avoid jumping to conclusions. Most people have a fundamental desire to be understood and appreciated. We all want to know that what we think and believe matters.
8. Use reflective listening or mirroring. This means using the exact or paraphrased wording of the other person to verify that you have gotten the message. It demonstrates you are truly listening.
9. Show people how much you care and ask questions in a non-threatening way. You’ll be amazed by how much they’ll tell you.
10. Use layering. This means taking a piece of the other person’s answer and weaving it into your next open-ended question. It helps you to have a deep and meaningful conversation.

If you’d like to receive my new workbook straight to your inbox when it’s released, please put your email address in the box in the sidebar. You’ll be sent my current workbook, Masterful Networking, straight away.

90 – 95% of New Year’s Resolutions fail.

Whether we’re trying to save more money, lose weight or stop smoking, we run into difficulties. That’s because these things have created other habits in our lives.

This year, rather than saying “New Year’s resolution”, you might want to call your goal a “New Year’s promise” – this has a greater level of integrity. Give your word and keep your word … but to fewer things.

Building a New Habit

It requires discipline to keep to a resolution and build a new habit. (Once the habit is ingrained, it becomes easy.) Instead of trying to do everything at once, choose only one or two major resolutions at any one time, then work on them for at least two or three months. Then you can pick another one or two.

To be more disciplined, you need to take poor choices away. Keep cookies and ice-cream out of the house: if it’s not there and you really want it, then go to the store.

If you can, make the “right” choice automatic. If you want to save more money, set up a regular payroll deduction so that the savings are made automatically without you having to take any action.

Breaking Old Patterns

We have to break patterns so that new worlds will emerge.

How motivated are you? How desirable is that change? Do you genuinely want it … and do you truly have the ability to do it? Without the motivation and ability, no amount of support will help.

Look for two key levels of support:

• Social support
• Structural support

Social Support

Family, friends and colleagues can all help to encourage you towards your goals. Accountability is a powerful force – if you tell people what you’re going to do, you’re more likely to stick with it.

Look for innovative ways to use this social support: e.g. “If I don’t keep to this, I’ll pay you $1,000…”

Structural Support

Organize things to maximize your chance of reaching your goal.

Some people hire personal chefs or get food services to deliver portion-controlled, nutritionally-balanced meals to their home. This isn’t overly expensive compared with going to a restaurant – perhaps $5 – $10 per meal.

One New Year’s Resolution Examined: Losing Weight – Successfully

Over two-thirds of Americans are overweight and obese, making “losing weight” a very common New Year’s resolution.

You may have tried and failed to lose weight before. If the behavior you engaged in before didn’t work, then change it. If you’re doing a certain type of exercise and not losing weight, then you need to change your routine, and look at the foods you’re eating.

It takes a 3,500 calorie deficit to lose one pound. To lose weight, you need to exercise and burn extra calories, or you need to take fewer calories in: ideally, you’ll do both.

These tips can help:

• Out of sight, out of mind: don’t keep candy dishes around the house during the holidays. Put food away and out of sight. Empty out the candy stash in your office drawer.
• Work on your goal as part of a community, e.g. at your office. Many offices will have a weight-loss challenges and regular weigh-ins together. They may have a personal trainer come in a couple of days a week and run exercise classes at work.

Don’t get hung up on achieving the “perfect” figure. You may simply need to be happy with who you are and what you have. If you exercise and eat fairly well, then accept your natural shape.

If you’re interested in improving your health, take the free real age test online: this lets you look at different factors that can make you more youthful and vibrant.

Help and Support with Your Resolutions

It can be tough to make changes on your own. If you want to improve your professional life or personal life, take a look at my coaching services or contact me with any questions. I would be delighted to help you to take new strides in 2012.

“I heartily recommend Barry for any individual or organization that wants to realize their potential.” – Ted Canaday.

“Healthiness” isn’t a black-or-white, all-or-nothing scenario. You can still eat healthily during the holiday season – without avoiding networking events and parties.

Tip #1: Avoid attending events when you’re ravenous

Grab a piece of fruit, a few crackers or even just a glass of water before you leave the house. It doesn’t look good when you go to an event and gorge – and it’s not great for your health either.

Tip #2: Use a small plate at buffets

If you’re at a buffet or similar, place the food on the smallest plate you can: you’ll have a satisfyingly “full” plate. Try to make half the plate healthier choices – like vegetables, fruits, even nuts.

Tip #3: Try eating a small piece of dessert first.

If there’s something chocolate (especially dark chocolate) or similar that you fancy, go for that. The fat in the chocolate helps to give you a feeling of satiation and satisfaction.

Tip #4: Eat more slowly than usual

Give your food time to digest: it takes twenty minutes for your brain to register that your stomach is full.

If you’re currently overweight, unfit, or unhealthy, you may need to make big, radical changes in your lifestyle in order to achieve healthiness. Sadly, it’s not easy to change. “Change or Die” in Fast Company magazine found that the odds were nine to one against change – for people who had a serious, life-threatening condition.

In order to succeed, you need to:

• Get as much social support as you can: from friends, colleagues, family, personal trainers and so on. Ask them to hold you accountable.
• Build in structural support – remove unhealthy foods containing trans fats and high-fructose corn syrup from your home. Stock up on fruits and vegetables.

Don’t wait until the New Year to start eating more healthily: you can begin now.

Think about an upcoming holiday event that involves food – perhaps a family meal or a work buffet. Which tips will you implement in order to ensure that you make healthy choices?

People who appreciate what they have and who they are seem to be far happier than those who constantly strive for more.

Whether or not you celebrate Thanksgiving, take a few minutes to consider what you’re grateful for today.

One way to be happier long-term is to keep a gratitude journal or log-book. Look at each day through a pair of imaginary “gratitude glasses” that let you look at your world and examine the smallest things, as well as the bigger things, that you’re grateful for.

You might think about:

• Your health
• Your relationships
• Your political freedom
• Little moments in your life

Expressing Your Gratitude

It’s important to say thank you – to be gracious and appreciative about people’s gestures and deeds, both at work and at home. Simply saying “thank you” or writing a quick email makes it clear that you notice the efforts people make.

You can go further than that, though. Write regular thank you notes – see these as a once-a-day vitamins! Keep a stack of notecards nearby so that you can easily send a quick note when you go through your day wearing the “gratitude glasses”. Send a physical note, not just an email, whenever someone has performed some significant act for you.

In Gary Chapman’s book The Five Love Languages, one way of expressing love is “acts of service” and another is “words of praise and acknowledgement”. Make sure that you respond to other people’s acts of service appropriately, by thanking them and acknowledging what they’ve done: this helps improve your relationship.

What could go in your gratitude journal (or log) today? Who could you delight with a thank you note?

If you’re going in the wrong direction, derailing yourself intentionally is very difficult – but very worthwhile.

During the current economic troubles, many people’s plans have been derailed – and perhaps this has happened to you too. If so, see it as a time of excitement and opportunity: a chance to re-explore the question of what you were meant to do.

Alternatively, you may be carrying on in a role that hasn’t suited you for some time, if ever. Perhaps it’s time to do something different.

When people are doing what they’re meant to do, most of them have a big grin on their face. Do you? Consider this: How you spend your day and who you spend it with is your life.

Perhaps you feel that you have to spend your day around people who you’d rather not be with. Ask yourself: If I knew I couldn’t fail, what would I do?

What Are Your Values?

Our core values rarely change – they’re constant throughout our lives. We can bring them to any situation and examine where and how they could be expressed.

Here are some questions you could ask yourself, based on my own core values:

• What actions could you take to enjoy better health?
• How could you show more integrity?
• Where could you be more courageous?
• What opportunities exist to build extraordinary relationships in your life?
• How can you model greater leadership at work and at home?

Look at your skills and passions, and ask yourself how your values could be expressed through these. How could doing this be a catalyst for a new career opportunity?

If you’d like to receive regular updates from my blog straight to your feed reader, you can get the RSS feed by clicking here.

I have had several guest posts published on large self-improvement websites. You can follow the links here to catch up with recent ones:

Why You Need a Pre-Emptive Strike Against Interruptions on Work Happy Now

This post explains the concept of a “pre-emptive strike” in business terms, and shows you how to use these effectively to avoid interruptions.

You may have certain high-maintenance employees and co-workers who tend to interrupt a lot and ruin your momentum. Maybe you get a phone call, or they pop into your office – however the interruption comes, it breaks your flow. This is when a pre-emptive strike is warranted.

Four Steps to Change Your Life – With Books on Dumb Little Man

Can books really change your life? Yes – if you use them correctly. In this post, I explain how to do that in four simple steps.

As a coach, educator and self professed life-long learner, I believe that books are one of the very best bargains around – with years of experience and best practice crammed into a $20 package.

Take the Stress Out of Your Small Business – Today on FeelGooder

If you run your own business, you may well experience considerable stress. This post explains how you can redesign your environment, and how you can avoid and manage stress.

You have the opportunity to design your environment. That means asking yourself:

• What do I want to do more of?
• What do I want to do less of?
• What do I want to start doing?
• What do I want to stop doing?

Take the time to read one (or more!) of these posts today. If you would like to receive regular posts from me, you can get RSS updates from my blog straight to your feed reader by clicking this link.