“These boots are made for walking”

Are you passionate about walking?  Are you interested in finding out more about where you can walk in the North Clare Area?  Are you interested in offering walking to potential visitors to the area?  If the answer is yes, Clare Trails Steering Group invites you to attend a seminar on Walking in North Clare to be held in The Pavilion, Lisdoonvarna, at 7:30 pm on Wed Nov 23^rd.

Speakers will include:

• Eimer McCarthy, Rural Recreation Officer
• Ruarai Deane, Tourism Product Development, Shannon Development
• Ger Kennedy, Clare Local Development Company and Chairperson The Burren Way
• John G O’Dwyer, walker and journalist who writes regularly in the national press on walking tourism.

This seminar will also announce details of a pilot two day training programme for 12 participants who wish to learn the skills necessary to act as a Walk Leader.  These participants will avail of one to one coaching designed to advance any walking related enterprise idea they may be considering.

For further details contact the programme coordinator and enterprise coach:

Niall Heenan

info@purecoach.ie

087 2445547

Latest News- Introducing Points of You-The Coaching Game
I am now an Irish distributor of The Coaching Game published by Points of You. I have used this resource with individuals, groups and teams and find it a wonderful tool. It helps to obtain a different perspective and can be used in coaching, training, facilitation or  for self reflection. Drop me an email if you would like to discuss it in more detail. info@purecoach.ie Enjoy!  Points of You is currently available at an introductory price of 110 euro plus P&P.  If you wish to order just email me and we can accept payment via PayPal.

What started me thinking about integrity?  A number of events contributed to it: dishonesty in Church, Banking and mixed messages from our political leaders.  However, a conversation with a business person recently brought it home to me as this person stated that they struggled to communicate with others in business around them.  When this person realised that their struggle was as a result of how we communicate with each other they realised that when they concentrate on their own personal business values and ideals then there was no struggle to communicate.  The difficulties arose when they had to communicate in an arena where their values and beliefs collided with those around them.  Once they saw the sense of ‘honesty and truthfulness’ in relation to themselves then the struggle diminished.

So as we work towards our own personal integrity and developing integrity in our children and those around is, where do we begin?  Branden in the Six Pillars of Self Esteem describes Integrity as : ‘living with congruence between what we know, what we profess, and what we do; telling the truth, honouring our commitments, exemplifying in action the values we profess to admire.’

Do we live well with what we know and profess about ourselves?  Do we act as we believe we should act? Do we ‘walk the walk’?

If we had the strength to have integrity in our lives and institutions what would our society look like? What would we see, hear and sense every day?  What could we do to make us strong?  What could we do differently beginning now?

“To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson
To all friends, clients and casual visitors to this site: May 2010 bring success that matters to you.

Regards

Niall

In 2008, The New Economics Foundation was commissioned by the UK Government’s Foresight Project on Mental Capital and Well-being to identify a set of evidence-based actions to improve well-being, which individuals would be encouraged to build into their daily lives. The resultant publication is available by following this link.

The five ways are:

• Connect with the people around you
• Be Active
• Take notice, be curious
• Keep Learning, try something new
• Give, do something nice for a friend

There is a nice set of postcards you can purchase on the nef site and perhaps these could be a more meaningful alternative to Christmas cards this season?

‘Eveningtime’ Something in that word causes me to notice.  Do we have evening time any more?  Our days are often divided into just day and night, work and rest,  office and home with less of that period of winding down, relaxing before night, ‘When I get to sit down its too late to relax’

We now have light beamed into every dark corner and if we want to relax there are so many distractions around us.  But what will the future bring?  As our ‘economy’ falters more of us have more time, as peak oil and energy costs impact in the coming years will we still have the extravagance of all these light filled spaces?  Is this going to be a lifestyle crisis or opportunity? At the recent Ceiliúradh conference in Tipperary Institute Rob Hopkins posed the question:  ‘what stories will we tell our children and grandchildren?’  If the stories are to be real then what could we be ‘doing’ at this point so as to have stories to remember?

So where do we want to begin our story? What story would you like to tell your grandchildren in 30 years time?  How could we begin the story in terms of how we responded to the need to preserve the earth’s resources, reduce our carbon emissions and respond to increased unemployment and financial pressures?

Where does coaching fit into this?  Through coaching we obtain clarity and a deeper understanding of ourselves and the areas we want to progress on.  Coaching can assist one to begin the journey.