Sprechen Sie Deutch?

In my mid-twenties I moved to Germany looking for work, any work that was new… I could have picked up a job in an Irish bar, but I had plenty of bar tending experience from my college days and it wouldn’t improve my German. I had two university qualifications at this stage but was only beginning to learn German. A slight disadvantage in trying to use my newly gained knowledge in Berlin! It was 1995 and English was not widely spoken there. I applied to an ad for Gutmann und Roth GmbH, a stock exchange brokerage company, and was invited to interview. At the end of the interview Fr Brand said that my German wasn’t good enough for the telemarketing job. Having learned off the sentence from my Berlitz German Language book, I asked if she could repeat what she said as I hadn’t understood, unwittingly proving her point. When I did understand, I asked if she would give me a go anyway, even just for a week and she said ok! I had nothing to lose. I was unemployed anyway and thought I need to try something! I don’t know what I was thinking. It wasn’t as if I was going to miraculously learn how to speak German fluently in one week! Somehow Fr Brand decided to keep me on.

A year and a half later I was still there, interviewing a candidate for a similar role and organising the calls for the telemarketing team…needless to say my German had improved quite a bit in the meantime. I took a chance and it worked out, despite there being no reason to think that it would. Business can be like this. We need to collect and analyse the data but sometimes even if the data doesn’t support it, we need to make a brave and daring move and take a leap of faith to achieve the seemingly impossible.

That September, I started to suffer from chronic muscle spasms (diagnosed in June 2015). I now believe that I was physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually depleted. I was operating at about 15% of my capacity, dragging myself through each day. I was in chronic pain every night and waking up more tired than when I went to bed. So far, I have seen 12 experts in very wide variety of fields, from rheumatologist to bone setter, and physio to spiritual healer, to help me regain full health. Some weekly for months, and some monthly for years now, with over 17 daily & weekly recommendations being implemented. All have helped me move forward and I am now nearly back to full health. Even though there were many times when it felt like despite all my efforts, I was going backwards, I always believed that if I just kept trying and was open to new things I would eventually reach full health again.

One of my main learnings through this experience is that with an illness like this there is rarely one panacea and that once you are seeking advice from knowledgeable experienced people you will always get some value. No one person cured me but all helped me on my journey to healing myself. In business we often look for the Silver Bullet, the one thing that will transform our business. In reality, most significant sustainable successes come from dozens or even hundreds of small consistent improvements.

So…what do you want…?

Eoin and I, during our pre-marriage course knew we would like four children. Him being from a family of four children and me being one of six, decided that three was too few and five too many! We didn’t expect that this would be so challenging, especially after having our first two boys each within 10 months of deciding to give it a go! However, we had five subsequent pregnancies, four operations and six months of blood tests to rule out cancer before completing our family with our two youngest fabulous boys. Our dream was to have four children and we are very grateful to be blessed with our four sons. The road to achieving our goals is often rocky and may feel like we’re not succeeding. I believe there is a reason for everything. And yes, what doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger.

That’s the big question I ask myself when I’m struggling

Of course, there are situations in all of our lives when we should give up. These are personal to all of us. But whatever road we are on, if it’s not the right one for us, we should give up and go down another route. So how do we know which is which? How do we know when we should persevere or when we should call it quits, take our learnings and move on.

Here are the questions I asked myself…

How important is this to me on a scale of 1-10? Is it a ‘must have’ or a ‘would be nice’?

Is this goal or path aligned with my purpose? Will this bring out the best in me?

Do I believe I can succeed?

How will I feel when I succeed? How will I feel if I don’t succeed? What is the cost to me if I walk away? What is the cost if I don’t?

Probably the single most important question “do I still believe it’s possible for me to succeed in this area?” If you have given up hope of success or happiness, then either refind it or give up quickly!

Way too often we stay in situations, relationships, businesses or organisations that just aren’t working for us anymore but we stay out of some sense of false loyalty or fear of change. We were not created to merely survive, put up with, or martyr ourselves.

I truly believe we were all born to live awesome lives, to live up to our full potential and to express all the gifts we were blessed with. And sometimes when we stop, walk away or say no to something we make way for a game changer.

Experiences

The people, information and experiences we choose to surround ourselves with; are critical factors in the lives we create. There is a great saying – “many people are responsible for my successes but only I am responsible for my failures”… We only fail when we give up before it’s our time to shine or fail to see failure as the invaluable teacher it most assuredly is. Every one’s journey is different. We all have our own challenges.

Growing up I tried to live my life by one rule…The Golden Rule- Do onto others as you would have done onto you. Other than that I thought personal development meant gaining new qualifications, languages and work experience!

It wasn’t until I came across ActionCOACH in 2004 that I realised the vastness of personal development and now believe it is our life purpose. I have delved into this area and LOVE it. I seem to have an insatiable appetite for learning or maybe I just have an awful lot to learn! The work I have done on myself has helped me be a better coach, wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend, neighbour & colleague. I sometimes joke that the undertaker will be trying to close my coffin and I’ll be trying to watch just one more video talk, listen to one more audio book or share one more learning. Over the years I’ve gathered my favourite life generalised principles. (Thank you Martin for encouraging me to do this). Here are a few that have had the biggest impact on me…

The Platinum Rule

Do onto others as they would have done onto themselves…yes, it’s a bit of a tongue twister. All it really means is while trying to do right by others, don’t presume that what you want is what they want. A great example is when buying gifts for people…don’t we often buy presents that we like rather than the recipient? In the context of DISC (a system of behavioural profiling) it means we are all different and different types of people respond to different types of communication better. The test of our communication is the response we get!

Trust your own intuition

We are often too busy running around and applying logic to everything to listen to our own intuition. (I am regularly guilty of this!) We have all the answers inside ourselves if we would only tap into it. Two small tips to allow us to do that are 1. Slow down 2. Do nothing…this creates a space where you can tap into intuition. Meditate, pray, walk alone in nature…whatever works for you.

Kaizen

Constant and everlasting improvements. Being a shiny object enthusiast, I tend to be very open to new learnings and improvements, it’s the constant bit that I struggle with. Sometimes I feel like I let go of implementing some great insights to make way for new ones rather than hanging on to them all.

Helen owns and manages Helen Burns & Associates. She has a wealth of business related qualifications and experience, together with strong business acumen and a passion for business. Helen is a licensed master business coach with, ActionCOACH Business Coaching the world’s No. 1 Business Coaching team, now operating in over 80 countries.

Having qualified with a B.A. from UCC in Economics and Mathematics in 1992, Helen furthered her education by completing a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Studies in UCG (NUIG). She has gained extensive work experience in Galway, Berlin, Dresden, Cork, London and Dublin covering a range of industries e.g. hotel, stock exchange brokerage, construction, finance house and call centre, and retail. She has held a number of positions from clerical to senior executive management.

The Helen Burns & Associates team has over 25 years’ experience in the operation of a business and a solid understanding of the different areas that need improving in small to medium sized enterprises, its target market sector. Supporting Helen Burns & Associates, ActionCOACH provides extensive training in the systems and methodologies to improve its clients’ businesses.

Since qualifying as an Action coach Helen has worked with many sectors including hospitality, manufacturing, construction, retail, legal and medical profession, financial services, education and IT. Her clients enjoy increased profits, happier and more productive teams and more free time to do the things that they want to do. Helen and her clients have received multiple national, European and global coaching & business awards. In 2002 Helen married Eoin, completed her Masters in Business Administration (MBA) and subsequently, had four delightful sons, Tommy, Ruairi, Cillian & Liam.

She enjoys spending her free time pursuing outdoor sports and activities with her family and friends. In 2007 Helen and her family moved back to Kerry and based her business coaching practice in Tralee. Helen’s vision is to coach business leaders and their teams to reach their potential and lead happier lives.