Hi, my name is Milisa Burns and I am very honoured to be blogging on this new and exciting site. I have enjoyed Northumberland Kids magazine for several years, since we first bought our cottage in beautiful Northumberland County. I am a certified professional coach now, and worked as a lawyer before I had my three children. […]
Hi, my name is Milisa Burns and I am very honoured to be blogging on this new and exciting site. I have enjoyed Northumberland Kids magazine for several years, since we first bought our cottage in beautiful Northumberland County. I am a certified professional coach now, and worked as a lawyer before I had my three children.
What is professional coaching anyway? (Hint: it’s slightly different from a sports coach…though there is some overlap.)
Last Fall, at the annual International Coach Federation (ICF) conference, I heard a really great and succinct description of professional coaching. DJ Mitsch, a master coach and former President of ICF, told the following story: She was on a plane and began chatting with the lovely elderly woman sitting next to her. The woman asked DJ what her work was, and so DJ proceeded to explain coaching to her, which is kind of hard to do; usually, it’s easier just to show someone. Anyway, when DJ’s explanation was finished, the elderly woman said: “Oh, I see, coaches help guide people to their own inner wisdom before they are 85 years old.” Yes! This a simple but powerful description of what coaching is! Coaching is not advising (much to my relief; I was never really comfortable with advising as a lawyer). Coaching is partnering with people and helping them find their own answers. So, I see these blog posts as a complement to my actual coaching conversations with clients. The posts are a way to share material and stories which I think might help people find their own inner wisdom. (By the way, anything I share has no doubt helped me in some way. I have and will always be my own first and most long-standing client!)
A Little bit about me….
This post is just to provide you with a bit of background before we get started with regular posts every other week. I have been blogging on my own site (www.milisaburns.com) since late last year. (You can find out more about my background and read older posts there, especially in my first two posts, “Who Is Milisa Burns?” and “PS to my Story Who is Milisa Burns”.) Now, I plan to post the same or similar blog posts on both sites, since most of what I tend to write has relevance for a very wide audience (and not just professional women, who are my main focus in my coaching practice). For example, my tag line on my website, “Making Room for You”, applies to all of us. We all need to continually make room for ourselves to grow and evolve and thrive, within the web of our relationships with others.
A little bit about some of the themes you might see in this blog….
Some of the themes and topics I have blogged on so far include:
- new books that I have read and think might be helpful to readers; see, for example “It’s Not our Whole Brain that Drive Us Crazy!“; (One of my summer projects is to read Martin Seligman’s latest book “”Flourish“, so I will eventually post a blog about that.)
- emerging ideas and tools from positive psychology, the psychology of well-being; see “A Feast of Strengths This Season“.
- how finding more purpose and meaning in our lives can help us build a sustainable world; see “Our Planet Needs Us“.
- how being more playful, vulnerable, and grateful can help us transcend some of the everyday “muck” we can so often get stuck in; see, for example, my blog “DD is 100 Years Old today! What’s her Secret?”.
That all being said, I am here to learn as much as the next person, so I would love to hear from you, if you have comments, questions or suggestions for topics that you would like to see me blog on.
See you next time!
I look forward to becoming a part of this new on-line community, learning a lot and having fun with you all in the process!
Happy Reading and Happy Father’s Day!
