Guest Post From: Small Business Trend Setters

For over 20 years Greg Clowminzer has been practicing coaching and considers himself to be one of the pioneers in this area. When he started there was no certification in the industry.

He studied at Coach University;  they offered the first Coaching certification training program.  It was founded by a man considered to be the grandfather of Life Coaching today, Thomas Leonard, who’s now passed away. Thomas had information that was leading the way in the field.

In 1993, Greg ended up studying with one of Thomas’s students, who mentored him when he was getting into coaching. His experience has stood the test of time, and his coaching has been his sole source of income. Greg’s background allows him to have conversations on an array of topics, he can converse on businesses, profitability, marketing all the way to the other end of the big life questions, who am I, why am I here, what’s my purpose, etc.

It’s rare to find somebody that can hold these kinds of discussions with business owners, professionals, CEOs. One of the most common things that happen after three business coaching sessions, he indicated, is that his clients get personal and dealing with that human element is probably the biggest part of coaching.

Greg indicated that there are typically three common challenges that most people need from a business coach, and these are:

1. How do I get more clients and more business?

2. How do I improve my leadership skills?

3. How do I influence and make an impact within my organization or on my team and how do I stay more focused in this day of distractions and chaos?

To resolve some of those problems, Greg suggests that they step away from it, take a deep breath and look at what’s going on there; getting more clients? Going out and chase them? A big part of coaching is asking the clients whom they need to attract? Better clients rather than going out there and chasing after any client. So they can start looking at the function of who is the business owner, who is the company and asking the question, are we attracting the type  client that we want?

From a leadership point of view, Greg is interested in developing people as leaders. Specifically, in developing mindful leadership and not authoritarian leadership. Somebody who is centered, calm and non-reactive is what he wants to develop in a leader. In order to do that the person must have a certain level of personal development, if not; they are going to be very reactionary to situations, employees, business deals, clients, etc.

So there are foundational pieces that needs to be developed with all of his clients. He indicated that most of clients have an issue with communication, lack of agreements, lack of boundaries and mainly people not keeping their word. So a big part of leadership is keeping commitments. If a leader breaks that commitment, the team and the rest of the company loses faith in him/her, the workability, the performance and the growth of the company will then diminish over time. So Greg teaches leaders the power of keeping their word and how that will strengthen their integrity. He would also ensure that his clients know what they need as a leader, as an individual and having the proper mindset and attitude. He noted that most times leaders become stressed especially by working 50, 60 or 75 hours of work each week.

He stated that leaders need to reset their mind and become more mindful. They must practice some form of reflection, mindfulness practice, meditation, and clear the mind so that they can go in and be a better leader. Greg believes that by introducing mindfulness into leadership will increase innovation and creativity.

So what is mindfulness? Greg indicated that mindfulness is a counter-intuitive approach of going within and being with yourself. Through that process, space is created within the individual. This practice of emptying the mind becomes very powerful in the creative process of innovation. Learning to step into the boardroom, step into work from a non-reactive point of view is the key.

There are all kinds of research that shows a mindfulness helps in eliminating depression, reducing stress, overcoming insomnia, etc. Most of his clients become overwhelmed when everything hits the fan, it’s because there’s no space within themselves, and they eventually lose focus.

In many respects a mindfulness practice helps to cultivate focus and attention so that when his clients move out into the world, they can take mindfulness practice into the work and the world. One of his passion projects is helping everyone increase their self-awareness through what he calls Mindfulness Communication Technique or MCT. Helping people acquire it allows people to be more mindful, allows them to do better work, be more creative and innovative, sleep better, stay more focused and be more organized.

“This is a practice that I am passionate about getting out into the world,” he indicated. At his workshops or retreats, he and his participants can become partners and practice this exercise not only at the workshops but continue it when they go home through Skype and Google hangouts.

The trend that he noticed is that the advancement of technology brought his coaching to a wider audience. This is done through Skype and Google Hangouts. He is enjoying that, and it’s moving away from face to face coaching sessions from before. He is looking now at creating webinars,“I think the public at large has a greater accessibility to it and those are the trends that I’m looking at”.

You may contact him at (760)-930-9604