Is Communication Coaching for me?

Most people have no idea what to expect from a communication coaching experience. Some wonder whether it's for those who are required to speak in front of groups, or whether it's for leaders, let alone for those who want to improve relationships, focus or a better understanding of themselves.



Consider the following questions and how you may respond to discover whether communication coaching will break down those barriers you want broken down:


1 When you are scheduled to speak to a group, are you at a loss as to how to prepare?

2 Has your speaking fear grown into speaking anxiety no matter what the environment or event is?

3 Is your challenge in how to handle "off-the-cuff" responses?

4 Do you sense that you need to simplify your technical information? Do you want to learn how to edit your material - when everything seems important?

5 Is influencing others, especially key people, your challenge?

6 Do you want to learn how to easily adjust and adapt to feedback?

7 Do you want to be wiser about how you impact people so you can tweak habits accordingly?

8 Do you need to learn how to condense a talk when your time is cut short?

9 Want to learn how to handle tough conversations?

10 Want to manage the voice in your head?

11 Have others asked you to slow down or speak louder?

12 Would you like to be one of those people who walk into any room with presence and confidence?


These are the most common questions clients have that bring them to coaching. If three or more of these relate to you, then you are ready to ask for help, to create a breakthrough for yourself and to generate behaviors that lead to confidence whether in handling tough conversations, presentations, that voice in your head or the relationships around you.

And when you take action around coaching, you are in the top 10% of individuals who actually follow through with what they most desire. Congratulations!

Email Merri at merri@bdbcommunication. We can get started right away.

Difficult Conversations

Whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, some conversations are just difficult to have. Although an introvert may find this to be the case more often than his/her assertive counterpart, the truth is, sometimes any of us could be at a loss for words.

I recall a great number of times when I struggled with conversation - all having to do with being honest. Not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings, I would rather tell a white lie than speak to someone's faults, errors or inadequacies. Likewise, I had difficulty pointing out my own mistakes, especially when around those I knew well.

All of us are fairly good at communicating. We listen, voice, encourage, discern, account, question, connect, engage, articulate, inform, seek and understand. Yet when any of three key triggers grip us, we stumble.

The triggers are

when we think others will disagree

when our emotions are challenged

when we perceive risk escalating

At these times we will either handle the conversation well (at times this is the case), we will mishandle it (often the case) or we will avoid it entirely (at least a third of the time).

There is no one thing to keep in mind to improve our responses. In fact, moving from avoidance to participation and from mishandling to handling well requires us to do several things.

1. Manage yourself
Doing this means it's okay to you that you make mistakes. You know lessons are learned this way, and as long as you follow through with the appropriate apologies and honest while supportive feedback, you can let yourself be a work in progress.

2. Use objectivity
Let information be information. What is true to one person may not be true to others, yet what is true to them should be validated. Although your emotions may be engaged, focus on facts. This isn't about backing down. It's about discovery - and that moves people forward.

3. Influence others
When people like and trust us, they allow themselves to be influenced by us. On the most basic level, respecting them can move them to like or trust us. What will it take for us to respect them before they even respect us? This step is critical to anyone in leadership as well as to those wanting influence in other circumstances.

With these steps also comes the need to frame conversations well, to be accountable, to plan in advance and prepare to connect well with your audience. Difficult conversations will always stretch us. Yet what we hope comes from them is practice, good experiences, respect and true appreciation for others.

The hardest part

Now what?

I've done what I said I would do.

I showed up. I made the call. I sent the information. I am ready and waiting.
And the clock keeps ticking. My alarm is about to ring. Why? I'm impatient.

One of the hardest things in life is waiting. It allows us to question, to reconsider, to doubt and even to regret.

Yet the ironies that multiply around our impatience have to do with what we have failed to do. While we are patting ourselves on the back regarding a specific individual, task or priority, we fail to engage in the activities others are waiting for us to act on.

In life ironies abound. While we are getting impatient with others, yet others are already fed up with us. It just happens that way.

The hardest part of life is finding the balance in our inconsistencies. What we see in others applies to ourselves. There is always an inconsistency. So we either stop getting impatient with others or we settle for looking within to find the inconsistency. And then do something about it. Now.

Connect. Just do it. There is someone you've been meaning to get back to. Stay in touch. All it takes is a simple connection. Next thing you know, others will be reaching out to you.

Someone's Out to Get Me

Lately I've been reading Nobel Prize-winning book, The Appointment, by Herta Muller, Romanian-born author who writes of characters living during the Romanian dictatorship.

A chilling tale of many flash-backs with well-written, poignant first-person narrative, the work echoes with characters living out of fear.



There is a time when the main character shares a horrifying discovery to her friend Lilli of a narrow package in her purse containing a human finger with a black nail. Through this she implied someone was out to get her.

Unmoved by the tale, Lilli retorts with a experience something along these lines: Once I bought a jar of pickles which I ate in 2 sittings. When I stuck my fork in the jar to pull out the last one, clinging to the fork was a dead mouse. Do you think someone was out to get me? No. Anyone could have bought that jar of pickles.

Lilli lived her life as though she had something to gain. Her friend was the opposite. Daily she saw the things she had to lose, suspecting folks around her while amplifying her own dismal circumstances.

Many of us today, in our own country, our own city, our own homes live life with Fear in the Driver's Seat. We hold ourselves back by focusing on the What If's. The look in our wild eyes or slanted, questioning visage tells the world our tale. Someone's out to get me.

It isn't that life has given us lemons as much as the fact that we chose to squeeze their stinging juice into already opened cuts while running away screaming. So of course we are confirming that someone's out to get us. It's us.

Re-evaluating Structure

What works for you?

Pretty broad question to ask, especially without first asking, what do you want? When I think of what I want, I uncover things that are in opposition to each other. Here are my 2 main things: Peace, Fun.

With peace I feel at ease, unhurried, in-the-moment and rested. Fun brings to mind many opposites - speed, adventure, thrill, planning for a specific outcome.

I still want both. Life brings us experiences that both fit our nature and test it. Challenge is what we all crave, even though it requires risk, endurance, difficulty and emotional involvement. It gives us life!

Peace gives us a way to reflect on life, after we've had the challenges. They work together, yet if not seen that way, if we don't evaluate how they work together, we will quickly dismiss them as not being able to exist together. We will question the need to plan, when being in-the-moment feels more natural. But then, we will bore easily.

How is life working for you? When I answer this question, I see the many days when my structure is supported by my need for fun. I push, I plan, I gruel through my days in the hopes that I get the results - the chance to enjoy life! I forget about the days of non-structure, for peace and reflection. Forgetting this, I then tend to question the value of my time spent with rigor.

Funny, huh, how when we re-evaluate the structure that works for us, we may see the beauty of the inconsistency. And then understand its value.

Anxious Movement

Steps in the hallway, around the coffee pot, outside for a smoke, into a cubicle for whispers. Anxious energy leads us further away from the most important tasks at hand.

I can't do this. It doesn't feel right. I'm not any good. Why me?

These comments leave our lips or infect our thinking and before we know it, the energy within us - digging away at our psyche - furrows deeper ruts into habits that make poor use of our resources. Time is squandered, emotions are drained and our useful energy has been wasted.

We all have energy within us to do whatever we have to do. It pumps our blood that fuels whatever level of physical, emotional and mental activity awaiting us. And just like so many natural resources today, we waste it.

Pacing, fidgeting, eating, drinking, fighting, peeling out of parking lots and shouting expletives. Unfocused energy which can no longer be contained, leaks out. Because our bodies must move. We must do. We have a natural flow that requires motion. When we resist, avoid, balk and hinder, we give our nervous system few choices in how to cope.

Is this the way to be? Sloshing, waving, in turbulence? Out of focus and uncontrolled, it's not a manageable existence. Step one of managing ourselves is determining what steps need to be taken. And you've guessed it, step two is taking them.

No more sloshing, avoidant behaviors. No more excuses. Take the steps. Enough said.

Learning to recognize stop signs

Sometimes we don't quite recognize important stop signs. Whether it's written in an unfamiliar language or a new color or shape, a stop sign is a stop sign, and therefore we must STOP!

In our daily communication, stop signs are written in a number of ways. We must get familiar with recognizing them and adjust our behavior accordingly. For instance, most of us communicate fairly well, yet we should become aware of 3 indicators of barrier producing habits. In other words, there are 3 stop signs to get familiar with and adjust our behavior when there.

First: When we expect our listeners to have a different opinion. If in these circumstances we respond as we always respond, there is a chance the impact we make will be disasterous. We may either avoid the communication or push through.

Second stop sign: When our emotions are challenged. Now it is possible we will create disaster, it may impact relationship as well. Unless we develop objectivity our decision-making is at peril.

Third stop sign: When risk escalates. At this point our senses are heightened, limiting our good judgement. If we don't stop our typical behavior we may create irreparable damage and regret our actions.

These signs are important to pay attention to, so we develop self-management as well as the savvy to lead and influence others. Through this we are able to speak with confidence.

I know. I am an introvert, someone who often held myself back. Yet I had ideas that needed to be shared, skills with people, that when used, could make a difference. Regardless, for quite some time I held myself back. I assumed people would have a different opinion from me, so I didn't offer mine. Repeatedly I avoided connecting with people, yet when they reached out to me my emotions were challenged. Eventually, it led me to isolation, risking my sense of self. All three stop signs were there, yet I didn't know how to manage myself when I saw them. Unfortunately, this created disastrous results. I lost all confidence.

Today I am glad to say that when any of these signs show up, I can now manage myself. The signs may be spelled out differently, yet there is enough familiarity to me that I know to now modify my responses to adjust.

What a difference being aware of these signs has made.