I Am Strong Motivational Mugs

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I Am Strong motivational mugs

Designed with your favourite I Am Strong slogan of – “Strong is a mindset…not just how you take your coffee”, our fun and stylish motivational mug and spoon sets are just what you need to brighten things up. Looking for a quirky, inspirational, fun and unique gift? Looking for something a little standout to keep you company while you work? These mugs are guaranteed to make you smile.

Motivational mugs to go!
With the design commissioned by I Am Strong, you won’t find the same motivational mugs anywhere else.  Yours will be unique – guaranteed! Available in red, black, blue and pink, each mug comes with it’s own cheeky spoon that slots right into the mug handle.

We are intending to bring out a new motivational mug design every six months. This first ‘Strong is a mindset…not just how you take your coffee’ design is a limited edition and going fast at just £15 + pp each.

To place your order, whether you would like 1 or enough for the entire office, please email sarah@strongcoaching.co.uk.  Alternatively you can purchase online in the I Am Strong Store.

 

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Let’s get down to business!

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Let’s get down to business

Fridays – 44 Harpur Street – come along!

‘Strong’ will be available all day to give you taster coaching sessions, discuss what you are looking to achieve but struggling to move on, support you to plan and strategise on (not in) your business and make business coaching better understood and more widely accessible to all business owners and team managers in Bedford.

If you would like to know more then there is more information here otherwise just pop in and have a chat over some tea and quite possibly a salted caramel brownie…

Looking forward to seeing you there,

 

Sarah x

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Strong is a mindset…not just how you take your coffee

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strong is a mindset

It can take a lot of self-discipline to get yourself feeling good

I don’t drink coffee, but I do rely on a supersize shot of positive mental attitude every day. It’s amazing that it’s still not taught in schools and I wish I’d known years back that I had the power to change my own thoughts and instantly feel different. Instead, it took me a long time to get to that point but now I make the most of it. As far as I can, I control what goes in to my conscious mind, feeding it with podcasts and programmes that are going to educate and stretch me rather than make me feel fearful, anxious and overwhelmed (like the News, for example!). Strong is definitely a mindset, and with much out there set to distract and lure us, it can take a lot of self-discipline to get yourself feeling good and sustain it.

For an athlete it is important to have a super-charged mind

A strong mindset may seem like an optional extra to most of us, but for those Olympic athletes just back from Rio, it is every bit as important to have a super-charged mind as a highly-tuned body. According to Rebecca Symes, sports psychologist with Team GB Paralympians, who was recently interviewed by The Telegraph, athletes are constantly focusing on 3 types of goals:

-Outcome goals – the ultimate achievement such as Olympic or World Champion. This could be several years in the making.

-Performance goals -key milestones for assessing performance along the way to the ultimate outcome goal.

-Process goals – the day to day training, diet, sleep, mental focus precision goals that ensure success from the micro-level.

These goals allow an athlete a vital sense of control that is complimented by having a supportive and trusted ‘Team Me’ and an ability to re-use successful past experiences to motivate future success.

Top tactics for a positive mindset

Dr Kate Hays, Head of Psychology for Team GB recommends the following tactics for creating a disciplined, focused and positive mindset:

1. Trigger words – using the name of a place where you have been successful in the past to recall that positive emotion

2. Let go of what you can’t control. Worry only about the things you can.

3. Plan – do- review. Understanding where and how you can improve is key to moving forwards.

4. Accept your mistakes. Grieve them, accept them and let them go. You can’t change them but you can influence your ‘right now’.

5. Breathing. A rapid way to bring ourselves back to just us in the present moment is to focus solely on our breathing.

Remember – you are in control

Author of Evolve Your Brain, Dr Joe Dispenza D.C., writes that “it is where we place our attention and what we place [it] on that maps the course of our very state of being”. Are we actually then self-sabotaging by not taking enough care about what we allow to permeate our minds? Just as when you are stood in Costa or Starbucks you make a conscious choice as to whether it is latte, cappuccino or espresso that is going to pep you up next, so too you have a conscious choice over the positive feed you give your mind. Try it – change what you put in and notice how it changes what you get out. It takes self-discipline and commitment, but it will change the way you feel and show up in the world. After all, strong is a mindset…not just how you take your coffee.

 

If you would like to read more about personal development coaching then Click here. You might also be interested in downloading the FREE I Am Strong App.

Have a look at some of the Personal Development Coaching Packages  we offer and  Book your first session today.

“We believe that success is a journey that everyone should be able to travel. We show you how that journey begins, equip you with the confidence and resilience to go the distance and deliver you to your ultimate vision destination. We provide great personal development and business performance coaching.” 

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So what exactly is business coaching?

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Optimising business performance to increase revenue

Business coaching, business performance coaching, executive coaching, C-Suite coaching – however you term it – is all about optimising business performance in order to increase revenue. It is about ensuring that every area of a business is aligned in the direction of operating smartly, efficiently and at maximum productivity.

Business coaching starts with you, the business owner, before working with line managers and other employees if you so wish. Coaching is about accelerating achievement and by bringing in a coach to your business, you will benefit from not only an impartial sounding board, but a fresh pair of eyes. A business coach will ask you the questions that you probably avoid asking yourself; they will support you to prioritise, to delegate, to make key decisions and to generate the momentum you need to move your business forward.

You know your business best

You know your business better than anyone and a coach is not there to advise or to tell you what to do next. A coach is there to draw the best answers and decisions out of you, and fast. A coach is there to support you to take your business forward in a planned and structured way.

How do you know you will get results?

Working with a coach ensures that you are committed, focused and accountable to achieving the goals that you set together. Even working with as few as 6 coaching session over a period of 3 months. business owners can achieve significant improvements in levels of turnover, productivity, new business in the pipeline and more efficient operations. Even by session 4, you will notice a marked shift in your approach and mind set, feeling reinvigorated to succeed. Coaching is a proven and powerful performance accelerator.

How will you and your business benefit from working with a coach?

1. Gain an impartial sounding board.

2. Add a secret weapon to your ‘Team Me’.

3. Grow the confidence to make solid decisions.

4. Learn how to value and optimise your time by delegating and outsourcing.

5. Understand how to motivate employees and increase productivity.

6. Develop a strategic plan and stick to it.

7. Set targets, goals and milestones to track progress.

8. Ensure that you are working smart in all areas.

9. Develop the ability to trust your own judgement.

10. Achieve targets that you didn’t think possible.

 

Book here:

If you would like us to work with you to optimise your business performance then we have packages on offer here. Everything we do is bespoke so if there is something specific you would like to work on, please get in touch.

Business Performance Coaching Programmes

FREE Initial Consultation

Take advantage of our  FREE 25 Point Business Surgery

 

Read more:

If you are interested in learning more about business performance from slightly different angles then the following are a good read:

The E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber

Life Leverage by Rob Moore

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

 

Blog

You may also find articles you enjoy on our blog page such as:

The 5 hows to a 5 star business plan

 

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Looking on the world with Gratitude. How to just stand still and say ‘thank you’ when times are tough.

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Given the horrors of recent events in on our European doorstep in Nice and Turkey, and the uncertainty felt by many in the wake of Brexit and a country in new hands, it can be easy for this to be an overwhelmingly unsettling time. Suddenly we are watching the news 24/7, we are thinking twice before holidaying abroad, looking at every passing lorry with wary suspicion. We are putting ourselves on a state of high alert.

So how do we stand tall and resilient in the face of it all and make sure that we don’t take the weight of the world on our own shoulders? We take a moment to stand still and say ‘thank you’. Yes, you heard it – ‘thank you’.

No matter how dark the world gets, we can always continue to see the colour if we choose to. On a smaller, individual, personal, intimate scale, the world immediately around us still continues to offer so much. We must choose to still see this, to still see the good in the little things, and more importantly, to acknowledge it.

Before I go to bed each night, I scribble ‘5 things to be grateful for’ on a notebook at the side of my bed. It’s amazing how many things there are even on a what seems like a bad day, and amazing how much better I sleep for acknowledging them and saying a quiet ‘thank you’ to the world.

When we look at the world from a place of gratitude it doesn’t beat us, it looks after us, it helps us win. And guaranteed there will be things in your everyday which pleasantly surprise you, make you smile, move you forwards.

What 5 things could you be grateful for today? Share some of them with me to get you started today – I would love to know what really matters to you. Write to me at www.iamstrongcoaching.co.uk/contact-us

 

 

“We believe that success is a journey that everyone should be able to travel. We show you how that journey begins, equip you with the confidence and resilience to go the distance and deliver you to your ultimate vision destination. We provide great performance coaching.” www.iamstrongcoaching.co.uk

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Money and Happiness

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Hello #Bedshour and Bedford folks. Now this isn’t one of my articles but I really enjoyed the read and it got me thinking.  Why do I get such a buzz from shopping and the bigger the spend the bigger the buzz? Why do some people get buyers’ remorse? What happens when we simplify our life and spend much less? When is enough money enough?!

The School of Greatness podcast by Lewis Howes is one of my favourites and I really enjoyed this article from Lewis:

Money and Happiness

Money & Happiness

How Money Affects Your Mind & Body

Would you ever guess that one of the VPs at JP Morgan Chase has also authored children’s books? Or that the same man is also a Grammy award-winning jazz album producer, and has written a book that is slated to be one of the top 15 business books coming out this year? How about that the guy who fits both of these descriptions has also traveled the world researching the origins of money and how it affects us?

Meet Kabir Sehgal. All of the above statements about him are true.

His new book, Coined, looks at the neuroscience behind our relationship with money, where it came from, and where it’s going. Even if you’re not into all that, you’ll be deeply interested when you hear Kabir explain how our brain reacts to even the touch of money. I couldn’t stop asking him questions about his research and how money affects us all.

Money’s Impact On Our Biology

Money truly has a profound impact on us. The effect money has on our biology is incredible — and it can shape our lives in ways we didn’t know. Just saying the word money can stimulate your skin, and actually touching it can numb your senses.

Money activates regions of the brain from the reward and fear centers in the exact same way as someone who is about to do a hit of cocaine. That’s a pretty powerful effect. Even the idea of gaining money is more exciting on a subconscious level than actually receiving money.

Do you know anyone that plays the lottery or gambles often? Have you ever asked them why they do? They’d probably say it’s because they might win.

That thrill from the possibility of winning comes from a cognitive bias called availability heuristics: things that are more readily available to your memory start to inflate the idea that the same thing is going to happen for you.

Money And Genetics

Our genes interact with money on a level so deep that it can affect your FICO score (which is your credit rating). That’s because there are genes that give you a predisposition to take greater or lesser risks. That means a lot of our financial decisions are made on a subconscious level.

Money is deeply evolutionary — we associate money with the ability to do… anything.

You can even test the impact money can have on people for yourself the next time you go for drinks with friends. When it comes time for you to pay for the next round of drinks just tell everyone that you’ve decided you’re not going to. Watch the reactions and energy shift — it’s amazing. You go from being a stand-up friend to the jerk who’s freeloading. Because you didn’t honor the currency — the social debt.

Money Through History

Anthropologists have gone back to look at societies and their relationship with money. Before there was physical currency, they used bartering. Even back in ancient Mesopotamia (4000 BC) there were debt and loan instruments because there has always been the need for something we don’t have (food, shelter, water, etc.).

The part of the brain that activates when money is destroyed is the same part of the brain that is involved in toolmaking. Ever heard the phrase, “Money is a tool?” It’s not an empty metaphor. There’s a neurological basis involving our reactions to money – gaining it, losing it, and seeing it destroyed or wasted – that triggers a natural response to survival.

Money And Happiness

There’s even some research done on how much money is “enough.” There’s some evidence that once you hit a certain level of income, your life doesn’t improve that much more the more you make. Once you are able to take care of your health and your stability, and the stability of your family and loved ones, the need for money should decrease.

But some peoples’ reaction and connection to money is so strong that they will go far beyond their basic necessities, working long hours and neglecting other parts of their life to achieve some sort of happiness that comes with the increase of money and the promise of more.

This is interesting because money is frequently discussed in religion in the same light. In the book of Matthew, 80% of the parables are about money. Across all the faiths there’s a different type of logic than what we act on now, and that logic is “less is more.”

It’s only in pursuing money that you realize that it’s not the end all be all. You need it to take care of yourself and your family, but as you age you learn that there is more to life.

Money is a symbol of value. It represents many different things to us. But how we react to it, how we measure our own successes and failures by our finances, is something most people don’t consider.

Take The Money Challenge:

My challenge to you is to start to really pay attention to what money does to your mind and brain. What the purchasing of items does — when you spend too much on something, when you choose not to spend on something — and how far a certain amount of money can get you.

Once you start to realize the effect money has on your life and your mind, maybe you can start to be more mindful in what you do with your money

Listen to the whole podcast here:

Lewis Howes is an online marketing expert, sought-after business coach, author, podcaster, and lifestyle entrepreneur. A former pro football player, collegiate football record holder, two-sport All-American, and current USA Men’s National Handball team member, he is the host of The School of Greatness podcast, which has been downloaded by millions since its iTunes launch in January of 2013. Howes has built multi-million dollar online education business and Details Magazine as one of “5 Internet Gurus Who Can Make You Rich.”

 

At I Am Strong Coaching we are here for all your personal resilience and business performance coaching needs in Bedford, London and the South East. We are out and about working with business owners, charities and talented individuals just like yourselves and even coach on the move out in the fresh air in our popular new Walk and Talk sessions. Your email to us is your first step along the journey to achievement and we love to help.

 

 

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Get Your Trainers. We’re Going Manhattan!

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I’ve noticed a lot of dogs getting extra walks at the end of the day round where I live and although I’d like to put it down to the longer daylight hours, I have a sneaking suspicion that by 6pm people are desperately trying to make sure they reach their daily Fitbit target. I’m impressed at the commitment to their 10,000 steps-a-day goal they are showing and reassured that there are a lot of happier, healthier dogs out there, but even more intrigued at the desire to get outside to get moving.

We are so flat out and on the go most of the time that most of our steps are taken in the office, on the stairs (when we’re not running so late we have to take the elevator) or shuttling between the car and the car park, or in the confines of the gym where we complete them on a treadmill without even going anywhere!

It is no wonder that people are so desperate to reconnect with the outside world that Fitbit has inadvertently started a ‘get-outdoors-get-moving’ revolution. And I’m starting to see the knock-on effect not just in the way the residents of Bedford are walking their dogs, but also in the way that people are doing business. Where meetings used to be huge swathes of your time that would get lost in a claustrophobic, light-starved rooms that left you struggling to keep your eyes open and devoid of all inspiration, now meetings are being seen as conversations that can be had, well, anywhere. Our time is precious and so is our wellbeing so what better way of operating then walking and talking when you get the opportunity. Only last week I had just such a meeting at the Forest of Marston Vale – heads got cleared, business got done, fresh ideas were had, moods were lifted, heart rates were elevated, dogs were walked and Fitbits were happy.

Our minds and bodies respond to being outdoors, our senses get stimulated and we come alive whatever the weather. There is something about being outside that roots us, grounds us, and reminds us what it is to be fully present in the world. We relax, we breathe more deeply, we fill our lungs, our hearts and our minds, we feed our soul. And as a result, we are able to think more clearly, allow ourselves to be inspired more creatively, spend time thinking, talking and dreaming without distraction. All of this lends itself to clients now also wanting coaching sessions outdoors and on the move – something which I believe in wholeheartedly as when the mind and body are synchronous, the results you can achieve are unbelievably powerful.

So kick off your work shoes, swap them for your trainers – the more brightly-coloured, the better. And work your mind, your body (and your Fitbit). Not only will you be getting the results you want faster, you will feel energised, motivated and a deep sense of achievement. The ‘Manhattan’ look of trainers on the end of your suit or office attire will become stylishly normal as you power through your coaching session while ‘changing up’ both your environment and your thinking. Get your trainers – we’re going Manhattan!

 

I’m currently offering a limited number of walk-and-talk #PowerHour coaching sessions at a discounted rate of £25 to my readers – just head to my website to book using discount code PHWT25.

Have a good weekend!

Sarah

 

What we do

I Am Strong Coaching provides bespoke personal and business performance coaching in Bedford, London and the South East to support talented individuals, executives and business owners to move up a gear when they need it most. As a specialist service, we also support military leavers with cv refining, cover letter writing, interview technique and business start-up to set them on their way for a strong second career. We have a range of coaching packages on offer on our I Am Strong Coaching website, spanning confidence, change and military transition as well as business start-up and performance.

 

 

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I Am Strong Bespoke Personal and Business Performance Coaching – Bedford, London and the South East

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What we do

I Am Strong Coaching provides bespoke personal and business performance coaching in Bedford, London and the South East to support talented individuals, executives and business owners to move up a gear when they need it most. As a specialist service, we also support military leavers with cv refining, cover letter writing, interview technique and business start-up to set them on their way for a strong second career. We have a range of coaching packages on offer on our I Am Strong Coaching website, spanning confidence, change and military transition as well as business start-up and performance.

A bit about me

I joined the Army rather spontaneously after graduating from university with a literature degree and a lot more rowing than reading hours under my belt. Leaving the Army eight years later, after living and working overseas, was an even bigger change. My background is almost entirely international and with that has come constant upheaval, flux and uncertainty as well as exploration, diversity and experience. I have spent long periods living in France and Germany and have worked extensively in Eastern Europe, India, Iraq, Kuwait, Mexico and Scandinavia. In any job that I have had, from being an Officer in the Army on war-fighting operations, to business development in the world of airline retail, to managing a £10m international development programme in India, I have always needed to achieve results and I firmly believe that success is all about momentum with a dash of confidence thrown in.

When I’m not coaching, I’m out walking Merlin my mischievous Rhodesian Ridgeback and exploring new parts of Bedford and the surrounding countryside. An Essex girl originally, I moved here two and a half years ago – another somewhat spontaneous decision while on a high having just finished a race at Bedford Regatta one sunny afternoon in 2013. Needless to say, I threw myself into life at Star Rowing Club as soon as I landed here.

The vision

The vision is to grow I Am Strong into a diverse hub of coaches and mentors, reaching out with bespoke coaching for both individuals and businesses and assisting others to focus, to achieve, to grow, to thrive, to prosper and to see a significant return on their investment. The journey has begun as we start to work with carefully-selected associates allowing us to leverage in the arenas of personal branding, psychological profiling, public speaking and leadership. We look forward to being able to support military leavers through a network of I Am Strong franchised coaches. A long way to go and a lot of hard work yet!

How are we relevant to you?

Coaching is an incredibly powerful, yet still reasonably well-kept, secret. All top athletes have a coach; the majority of top leaders, businessmen and entrepreneurs will also have a coach. Why? Because where focus goes, energy flows. And a coach will take you further than you can get on your own by growing your self-belief, your self-knowledge and by holding you accountable to achieving the targets you set. A good coach will help you to change the way you think, change the way you see the world, and change the way you feel. A coach is your secret weapon, your edge over your competitors, helping you to think strategically, to explode ideas and lift you up and out of the daily doing. A coach will help you to:

  • Get clear about your goal
  • Identify blind spots
  • Be accountable
  • Focus on what is really important
  • Gain a competitive advantage
  • Develop powerful leadership skills
  • Increase engagement with the things that really matter to you
  • Feel happier and more grounded

 

It is important to see coaching as an investment, and not an expense. Invest in yourself, your people and your business and they will invest in you. Get smart, Get Confident, Go beyond.

Supporting the #BedsHour Community

We do as much work as possible with local businesses and would like to thank the following for their recent, fun and hugely productive collaborations:

 

If you think there might be a way we can help you or your business then please get in touch – we are on twitter @iamstrongcoach or you can reach me sarah@strongcoaching.co.uk.

It all starts with a coffee. And sometimes cake.

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