Day 7: A Retrospective

I thought I would take a few lines in today's post to host a retrospective about where I was just 7 days ago  and where I am at now.  If you'll remember it was quite an emotional decision to strike out on my own and several times before I jumped shipped I tried to talk myself out of it; thinking it wasn't as bad as I thought it was.  I just realized something looking back...it was that bad and I am glad to be charting a new course on my own.

Sure I traded some short term financial security with the big pay-off in terms of finally having a career.  No longer a slave to the billable hour and the quarter end dash, I am free to focus in on the big picture and my future.

I am so excited for my coach training to begin, it will be held in Vancouver, BC at the Marriott hotel.  I am ready to put my best foot forward and go with a learning mind.  I also found another training that I am very interested in pursuing as a form of new client intake.  It is called the Leadership Circle and is a 360 feedback system that looks at a leader from several dimensions and provides a quantitative perspective on which to have an introductory discussion.  The value that this tool provides is that the individuals results are aggregated against a database of hundreds of thousands of data points.  In my opinion this is going to be an excellent methodology to define the "work" that we will be focusing on.

The root of this theory is rooted in systems-based thinking.  It is ironic that I just attended a webinar on systems-based coaching that broke it into two quadrants: the visible and invisible.  The visible are considered our goals and actions or those things which we can physically observe.  The invisible is our belief system which drives the goals and actions in the visible system.  The two are inextricably linked and work together as a complete system.

I spent time reviewing the proposed logos for my company and together with my graphic designer we were able to zero in on the perfect image.  I have attached the the logo below.

This is the company header for my stationary:

The great part about working with a graphic designer is that he thought of everything.  He didn't just provide a single logo, but one's with different backgrounds (dark, white, transparent), sizes, and formats.  He also created my letterhead so that I can print it on demand.  He also helped me design my business card which turned out splendidly.  This was the best $300 I ever spent!

I also started a leadership blog called "The Leadership Daily", the only problem is that I am not doing a great job keeping up with the daily part.  Perhaps I was a little too ambitious in defining the interval.  I also want to start writing a newsletter.  I will start with a monthly interval to see how that works.

Now for a great weekend!