James Bernard - Business Coach, serving the Christian community

January 25, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

Business and Life Coaching!

The world is a big place. And I’m here to help you find your place in it!

Business Coaching/ Mentoring

Business coaching is a process used to take a business from where it is now to where the business owner wants it to be. A business coach and mentor will assist and guide the business owner through guidance, support, accountability and encouragement in growing their business. By helping them clarify the vision of their business their sales, marketing, management, team building and so much more… and how it fits in with their personal goals.

Quite often business owners don’t see the woods for the trees. When you’re stuck in the middle, it can be difficult to see the bigger picture to get out. The business coach and mentor will, through asking questions and teaching, help the business flourish.

Life Coaching

When you’re at a fork in the road and you don’t know which way to go, in your career, relationships or life itself, you become disconnected with what’s important, you loose touch with your passion, your vision, your why, your purpose; you loose clarity of whats ahead. This results in low self belief, low self esteem, your confidence takes a hit, and your self worth rolls off the table. Which leads to procrastination, self sabotage and lack of self love.

I help people overcome these problems quickly.

Most people plan their holiday’s better than their lives. Do you know where you (and you family) want to be in 5 years time?

A coach and mentor helps others to find their way in life and business.

Photo Credit: “Maui – 2012 – Happy Couple”, © 2012 damien_p58, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

October 2, 2018 by James B Leave a Comment

Ultimate Intentional Planning

We all love our holidays, getting away from the hubbub of life. Some to find a bit of relaxation, a good book in a rain forest or on the beach. Others kayaking down some rapids or parachuting from 10000 feet. What ever it is, we plan it, don’t we? Some to the minute degree, others just to flight and accommadation.

And we love it. Some come back needing a break to recover from the holidays, been there? Yep!

How is it that we managed to have such a good time? You’ve guessed it – planning! It’s all down to planning.

Do you plan you life, your career, your business, or even your day to the same extent? And you wonder why it is so different?

Intentional Planning e-book cover — Intentional Planning ebook

This is being released later this week. After months of research, a system that will bring your future into the now, into the present.

This is a complete system that takes you through planning, how you need to think, your priorities, your schedule, and some rules. Yes we all need some rules.

This is the basic framework that will get you going. It is the system I use, and my productivity has increased about 10 fold! Not only that, I am enjoying life (which includes work) more than ever. I will be including some worksheet for down too. And of course, an online course to guide you through it all with extra info and goodies 🙂

Sign up now and I’ll email you the link (in the next few days) so you can get started. Every couple of weeks I’ll be sharing some tips on planning and getting things done so you can enjoy life to the full.

October 1, 2018 by admin Leave a Comment

Business without you

Are you in business or is the business in you?

When mentoring a business person/leader, there are always two avenues of interest. One is the business itself, the systems, processes, goals and results/outcomes to name a few. The other is the person. Their thinking, their hopes and fears, their goals and vision. And that, for me is the most interesting part. The business can be a reflection of the owner and their thinking.

A couple of questions that keep cropping up. Is it, be yourself or create yourself? Can you create yourself and still be true to who you are? The answer is yes, but there there more to it than meets the eye.

Who are you?

We are made up of 3 things:

Our Body:

This is our physical presence in the material world, it’s what we live in while we are here. All the little bits of you are needed for your body to function the way it does.

Our Mind/Soul.

This could also be called your soul. This is your thinking and emotions, your conscience and decision making. This is the bit that makes you you.

Our Spirit.

This is the part that it most neglected. This is the eternal part of you. The bit that says “I know, that I know, that I know”. This is the bit that is the spark of life. It is neglected because people don’t know about it, or they just have an inkling about. It is arguably the most important part. And it’s not taught in schools anymore. And without it there is no life.

Taking care

Body

Taking care of the body is down to common sense. Eating good healthy food – more on this here Horizon Innovations. Like a car, you only but it the best recommended fuel, and as food is fuel for the body, it makes sense to feed it good fuel. Exercise and sleep are also required. Remember that the whole is greater that the sum of the parts! If you laid out all the parts of a motorcycle on a bench it would do nothing; but put them together and you’ll get a motorcycle that’ll take you from here to there. It’s the same with your body!

Mind

Taking care of the mind is also important, very important. You need to make sure you are feeding your mind the best things possible. Do you watch the news? How do you feel afterward? Is that benefiting you? No? Then don’t watch the news! A guy I know used to listen to a chat show on the radio. He used to get so angry at some of the people on the show. He suddenly realised he really didn’t want to feel or think this way, it wasn’t doing him any good, so he switched stations. Now he turns up at work with a happy heart.
What are you reading? Again, what you feed your mind will have an influence on how and what you think.
From your thoughts come emotions, and from emotions come decisions. If you don’t like your decisions, change your thoughts.
Your diet also has an effect on how your mind works. It’s been shown that sugar can bring on anxiety.

Spirit

How do you take care of your spirit? Your spirit gives you your conscience. It’s your “knowingness”, your intuition. The bit that says “I knew you were going to say that!”. To keep th

is bit healthy is very important.
Take time out to be with yourself. Go somewhere peaceful, absorb the peacefulness. Listen to your inner voice.
I am a Christian and I find inner peace by being with God. You can find out more here on my personal website.

Back to the question, can you create yourself while remaining true to you? To answer that, you need to know who you are and what your purpose is. Once you find that, then you can create yourself while remaining true to yourself, and really you’re not creating yourself, you’re changing into the person you need to be to fulfill your purpose. If you don’t and just go for creating yourself you may end up living a lie. You can only live a lie for a while, even if you don’t realise it, because the internal you will start to reject the external you. The outcome of living a lie is that you’ll not be fulfilled, and you’ll feel empty inside and possibly feel conflicted.

How do you find yourself?

Good question. How do you react under pressure? Extreme pressure? What do you say? How do you behave? These are the bits you can change. Have a look at finding your purpose, and here’s a clue, you have special gifts and talents that no one else has, have a look at these. Your purpose is connected with who you are and the gifts you have and not necessarily what you’ve experienced. Your experiences have helped you become who you are today, they have shaped you. Your past does not determine your future.

You are the best person for your purpose – no-one can do it better than you!

September 11, 2018 by admin Leave a Comment

Co-working Spaces – Are they for you?

Co Working Spaces

Co-working spaces are on the rise and some of them are big business, and some are not-for-profit.

The how and why they are here is for another time.

The Co-working Wiki says:

Beyond just creating better places to work, co-working spaces are built around the idea of community-building and sustainability. Co-working spaces agree to uphold the values set forth by those who developed the concept in the first place: collaboration, community, sustainability, openness, and accessibility.

As they are here, are they for you?

First off, co-working spaces are not for everyone. There isn’t a one size fits all co-working space – thankfully.
They all cater for a particular market. Some for startups, some for corporate business, and some for the space in between.
To answer the question of do I need a co-working space there are some things to be aware of.

Do you work alone? A lot of small business startups work on their own in their back bedroom, in the car, in the cafe. We all need human contact of some sort, one the the 6 core needs. We all need input into our thoughts and our business. Doing it alone will most likely not be the best for the business or you. In this case I’d suggest a co-working space of some sort. If you’re short on fund to invest then some do a “day pass” where you pay a fee for the day, or they have an “open day” once a month. NAB (bank) in Melbourne and Geelong have a free co-working space to business account holders, and they’re building a great community there.
Do you go stir crazy being in the same place all hours? Having a change in environment can work wonders for creativity. As can passing by ideas by others. A note on this; keeping ideas to yourself because you think someone else will steal it is not good. Most people are lazy and wouldn’t know a good idea if it got up and slapped them across the face, fewer recognise the good idea and not act on it, and maybe the one who would act on it is too busy with their own ideas to drop them and do yours. So most ideas are actually pretty save.
Do you commute too many hours to and from work and could, if given the option, work remotely and go into the “office” once a month or so? Then a local co-working space might be the place and a god fit. There are some co-working spaces that have been franchised so you can join one and visit other in the “chain”, which could be good for traveling sales people who need a space to write report or even have face to face or skype meetings.

Pros: co-working spaces have a sense of camaraderie and one of helping each other without seeking reward. Some are free (NAB in Melbourne & Geelong). The potential for networking, there maybe someone there requiring your services. Finally, many co-working spaces offer amenities like kitchens with coffee, tea and microwave ovens, high-speed internet, printers, meeting rooms, and even couches and other places to take a comfortable break.

Note: Most require an investment but its generally less than renting your own office. And most people using co-working spaces respect the space around fellow workers and also try to keep the noise level down. Some co-working spaces even have “phone booths” so you can take a call with disturbing those around you.

Cons: There can be many distractions around the space, noises, conversations, people walking around, some asking questions.

And there you have it. Go have look & feel, try it out, see if it work for you.

Have you try one recently? What was your experience? Which ones would you recommend?

Pictures from Unsplash

March 29, 2018 by James Bernard Leave a Comment

Facebook Shinanigans

What has been going on at Facebook has been suspected for a long time. Only the real extent is now being revealed. Personally I suspected something going on when their Android app started asking for various permissions I didn’t want it to have. So I switched to an independent app (Tinfoil for Facebook), and now use Faceslim, which also uses the Facebook web-mobile interface and so cannot “search” your device.
If you had agreed to all Facebook app had requested, you’d have given them: your location, your contacts, your call logs, your SMS logs (logs = number called, length of call, when call made etc), your browsing history, what other apps you use, use of your camera and microphone. These are the main ones.

What should I do?

The question comes, do I continue to use Facebook or do I delete the account?
Your answer comes down to how you use Facebook and what you use it for. If its purely for social, then deleting Facebook may not be such a big deal. There are other ways to stay in touch, just maybe not as convenient. However, if you use Facebook for business – marketing and lead generation, then the question may need a more considered approach. I know of businesses that do very well with twitter alone.

For the time being I will continue to use Facebook, but I will use it differently. I can see a time when I will delete my account and when I do I will give lots of notice and be very loud about it! I will also have changed the way I do things. When giving something up, it’s more about a lifestyle change than the giving up.

My suggestions if you want to continue using Facebook would be:

to decide how you are going to use Facebook. Is it for business, social, keeping in touch with friends and relatives around the world? Are there other/better ways?
to visit the settings sections and the app sections and make sure all the settings are to your liking. (There’s a link at the end to a How-to)
Delete the apps and info on your devices while not connected to the internet. Then install “safe” apps like Faceslim (Android). On the computer only open Facebook in a separate window.

If you open other “tabs”, Facebook will know and you’ll see adverts reflecting what you looked at. My wife open the Mitsubishi Cars website next to the Facebook page, now all she sees on Facebook are adds for Mitsubishi cars! I go as far as using one browser only for Facebook (Fir

efox), and another for everything (Waterfox). Sometimes I’ll use Chrome, but that’s linked to Google! (And Safari to Apple). If you prefer Chrome, there is another called Chromium, it’s like Chrome but without all the Google bits.

Mozilla, the developers of Firefox have just released a plugin for Firefox that stops Facebook for seeing outside of its “window/tab”.

Here’s the link to the plugin.

Facebook setting how to.

And now you’ve locked down Facebook, well done.
Next is Google, then…..
If you think that Facebook is bad, Google has so much more on you. Have a look here The Guardian Facebook & Google Data

My next post is: Is it possible to go “Google free”? I’ll be starting with the Android phone.

December 21, 2017 by James B Leave a Comment

Basic How to Invest in Crypto

This is a basic – how to:

First off, my Disclaimer
All figures are actual, however, these are not to be taken as a guarentee that this is what you’ll achieve.

And

Remember, there is always a risk with any investment so be careful and only invest what you can afford to lose. Good luck to everyone! Do your research and your own due diligence before investing anywhere.

What is crypto currency (like bitcoin)? Crypto currency lives in the internet. There aren’t any physical coins. There are only validations of tranactions of ownership, on an emutable (unchangable) ledger. There are encryption (hence crypto) keys for your ownership details.

These keys are held in a wallet. There are 3 types of wallet. Software online, normally in connection with exchanges. Software local (offline), like on your PC or phone/tablet. Hardware offline, a special encrypted USB memory stick.

Then there are exchanges where you can buy and sell coins, either for other coins or fiat (normal) currency.

And this is where most people stop. They buy and sell, a bit like the stock market.

Other ways:

In the early days, mining was a way to “earn” coins. Now it is now not really economically viable although still can be done. Mining is being “paid” in coins for processing transactions. Foundational for the system to work. The system paid for the transactions. Now-a-days a mega-computer is required. Its the way the system had developed.

Investing in miners.

This has become one of the best ways. There are a few companies that you can invest in. In simple terms, you buy a package (a contract) and they use your coins to do tranactions, to buy and sell, and other such things, which is all fully automated. These allow for big returns.

Things to look for, for the things you’ll need.

The wallet.

Must be able to buy and sell in your country (some don’t allow to sell in some countries, but are working on it). Some have “hacking” insurance (like Coinbase), meaning that if they get hacked and your coins go missing, they are insured and should be replaced.

The exchange.

Where you buy and sell coins. Some are limited with the coins they trade, some do the lot (or close to). Most have the wallet facility.

Both

There are some online wallet systems that are also exchanges. These are the ones I use and can recommend:

Coinjar (Mainly for Australians)

And Coinbase

The miners.

This is where it can get tricky as there are many scams out there bandying figures that are amazing. Do your research, ask on the forums and social. Until you are sure, I’d suggest you only invest the amount you are willing to loose.

The mining investment company I use is USI Tech-Int, who not only invest in crypto currenties but also technology and are a big forex trading platform. USI Tech-Int

My investment with them is gaining a 1% (average) return on capital per day.

Each of the above system is free registration. So you can sign up now and then, when you’re ready, dive in and enjoy.

If you’d like to invest and would like some help to get started, then contact me and I’ll be happy to help guide you through.

Acknowlegement: By using the links above I may recieve a commission. I only recommend businesses or companies that I either use or have a good relationship with.