Day 38: Louise Wiles

November 7, 2009 at 12:01 am, Category: Inspiration

“Sometimes I think people wonder why what they thought they wanted isn’t turning out.  And I just wonder whether sometimes it’s because actually you thought you were clear, but you’re not 100% clear; there’s some doubt there.  There’s something that’s not clicked into place.”

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Toni Reece: Louise, I know we’re speaking to you in Portugal, my morning, I believe your afternoon, and I want to thank you so much for agreeing to take part in this project.  And before we go into the questions, could you please introduce yourself?

Louise Wiles: Okay, yes, thank you very much for the opportunity to participate.  I think it’s a really exciting project.  As you said, my name is Louise Wiles, and I live in Portugal.  I live on a small Portuguese island which is called Madeira.  It’s usually a little dot on any atlas you might find, very small, and I live there with my two young daughters and my husband.  I run my own business, which is Success Abroad Coaching which I aim to support people who are embarking on new lives abroad.  I came to coaching from a background in professional training, development, and occupational psychology, and my business draws on my personal experience really, which is being, of course, a number of years living and working abroad.  That’s me in a nutshell.

Toni: Well thank you very, very much Louise; and when you think of the work that you do or just in your personal life and you think about inspiration, who do you inspire and how?

Louise: Okay.  Well it’s interesting, because I guess this project in a way drew me to it because my business pipeline is inspiring great lives abroad.  So I’ve been giving that question thought in setting up my business, and what I mean by inspiring people who have made the decision to live abroad.  So I guess on one level, the business level, I perhaps inspire my clients to realize their dreams.  I think often people make moves to live and work abroad based on their dreams of creating better, happier lives, perhaps taking advantage of opportunities offered that don’t exist back home.  I guess they need the feeling that they’re going to create lives far better than perhaps those that they had in their home environment or will offer that opportunity.

I guess a lot of them achieve their dreams, but perhaps sometimes it comes at a cost — initially anyway — where starting and setting up their lives is perhaps not as straightforward as perhaps they imagined.  And I hope that what I offer when I work with my clients is I inspire them to keep their dreams and their personal inspirations alive; and I think this is the interesting thing, because usually my clients have been inspired to make a big change in their lives personally.  It has come from within; it has not come from me.  And at the point that we meet, they often try to keep that sort of inspiration, that dream, alive.

And so my role is to support them as they pursue that inspiration — and for the feel of that inspiration — and help them through the challenging times, perhaps the adaptation, the culture shock, getting used to a new job and a new language and so on.

Outside of my professional life, I hope that I inspire my children and my husband and my friends in that way that I live my life and sort of what I think about what I do as I coach.  I’m often a mentor in my professional role and helping people to face adversity or difficulties, challenges, helping them stay positive and optimistic and enthusiastic, and I guess I always have that at the forefront in my mind when I’m working with them.  I think it’s important.

I think when people move abroad, they leave their normal support structures behind, they start a new life without those structures, often at a time when they need them most.  That’s the ironic thing about it, really, I guess.  And sometimes the challenges are too great.  People give up their home.  Other times they struggle on for years perhaps not realizing their true potential or creating the happy life they were expecting they would create, and I hope that when I …  And often it’s those times people that I work with … I hope that I help them to remember why they moved in the first place and to look at the situation and their circumstances and work to create a better experience for themselves.

Toni: Well Louise, when you’re working with your clients or even your family — and I would imagine that the same would apply to both whether it’s in professional or personal — that you need to keep these people motivated and enthusiastic.  And I had a business partner that emigrated to a new country and she absolutely was astonished at how difficult it was to acclimate to that country; and she felt she was a very outgoing, giving woman, and she felt very isolated.  And so I can really imagine that people would really need you to stay motivated and inspired that their decision was a good decision.

Louise: Yes, yes, yes.  I think that’s very true.  I think the initial time …  I kind of, when I think about my move, I know for the first few months I’m always very excited, it’s a new environment, there’s lots to see, lots to do, and it’s quite easy at that initial point.  And then after a while, I personally find I perhaps question why we made the move.  You know, you get to the point where you get over the initial excitement of something new.

It’s a bit like having had a holiday for a couple of months and then perhaps having gotten to the point where you met and made good friends, you got several acquaintances but not the kind of friendships that offer the support that you have from friends and family back home, and I think that’s often where the difficulty comes, why people perhaps need something or someone to just pick themselves up and to remind themselves why they made the move in the first place, and inspire them to keep going in a very positive way.  It can become quite easy at that point to dip and to question quite seriously what the move was all about.

Toni: Right, right.  I know that she experienced that as well, so I can relate very much to the need here.  When you’re working with your clients and you’re working — when you’re doing … even just trying to inspire your family — do you also help them explore their potential?  And if you do, how does that happen?

Louise: Yes, very much so.  I think potential is really important.  There’s a potential and skills that people leave and they sort of leave their country and move to their new country and not thinking of their family and friends.  I think potential … Often, we don’t even consider our potential, do we?  And I think we’ll consider our strengths and positives that we have within us that can help us in the situations and circumstances that we find ourselves.  And so, yeah, the way in which I work, and I hope that’s the way I am with my friends and family as well.  It’s very much about helping them to think about what it is they want from their circumstances we’re talking about and thinking about what skills and strengths they have within them, and also what their dreams and their goals are for themselves.  We’ll pull on and use those skills and strengths.

I think inspiration often comes from … I think often people make changes in their lives in favor of things that they can handle — although they may not see it that way.  And so the way in which I sort of look at it with people is that if you’ve decided to make a change — even though you’re going through a difficulty and it’s uncomfortable initially — there’s always something within you that meant that you felt that you could handle this, that you’ve got the skills there, you’ve got the ability.

So it’s not a question of whether you can or can’t; it’s a question of how you’re going to succeed.  And so the way in which I guess I work to inspire people to succeed is by thinking about using their resources and their strengths and the potential and drawing on those; thinking about the successes, thinking about something we often forget to do.  I certainly do.  You know, I can get to the end of the day and I think that was a really nothing day.  But then when I actually force myself and — I should do this more often — sit down and think about well, “What was the success?” — even the tiniest little things — I fully start to feel better, a whole lot better, about the day.

And I think society, in a way, often pushes us towards thinking about things in a negative way and not achieving things fast enough.  Life moves so quickly now, doesn’t it?  We just don’t realize how much we’re achieving every day because we feel we should be achieving it more quickly and perhaps it’s one more issue, one thing to think about, and is, you know, time, making time; and this is how I kind of inspire myself as well.

If I take time to sit down and think about what I’m doing — I might be thinking about family or might be thinking about my business, I don’t know — but I find quiet time.  And I live in the most perfect environment for that as well.  It’s a beautiful island, so it’s easy for me to find a quiet spot.  And that’s inspirational for me and just the time, 10 or 15 minutes just to think.  Often I have my best thoughts at that point, just let my mind go about business or family and life and changes that we might want to make.

Toni: Well, that does bring us into the next question which you’ve so beautifully answered, which is what do you need for inspiration.  And your answer is that you need to take the time to think and whatever issue that you’re dealing with and to allow yourself some quiet time to reframe and to be inspired.  And when you’re in that place, Louise, are there tools or resources that you seek or that you use to help you stay inspired?

Louise: The answer is yes to that.  I guess I work in the perfect profession really, the tools about, you know, investigating my potential or ideas.  I need to read self-help books and so on, and I use them often.  And so I investigate, if you like, my passions and my purposes and have a good sense about that for myself, and that helps to inspire me.  So I do through that … I make this in a very structured way, but then often not at all.  I just go and sit somewhere quietly or one of the other things I do and recently have restarted … I’ve always done a lot of horse riding, and just recently I’ve started doing horse riding and learning to do some more advanced dressage type of horse riding.  And it really inspired me because it’s showing me how just tiny little changes in my attitude and mental approach can have very different effects.

And, you know, we’ve all heard — or quite a few people have heard — the saying when you’re clear what you want will sharpen your life but only to the extent that you’re clear.  And this is very true when you’re on a horse, because if I’m 100% clear about what I want the horse to do, or if I have a small element of doubt in my mind, it doesn’t work.  And that’s a really good lesson for me about my life in general.

I think sometimes I’m very clear about my direction for my business but then things perhaps don’t happen as I want them to and so then, using that analogy, I question, “Well,  was I really clear about what I wanted? Were there doubts in mind about it?”; and often I find there were.  So thinking about things on that level, that sort of inspires me to change the way I’m thinking, I think, and perhaps being more positive and definitely more clear about what I want.  And sort of trying to get rid of the baggage, the excess, you know, the negative thoughts, as well, and be very sort of clear about where I’m going.

Toni: And that’s also how you then explore your own potential, which you’ve spoken about the self-help books.  But I think the clarity and being clear on the direction helps you explore your potential as well; listening to you using the horse and your riding as an experience to keep you, as you said, to use the example of being clear because, if you’re not, the horse will let you know.

Louise: Actually, yes.  And it’s amazing how you kind of think that horse riding is about your physical movements, if you like, but that all comes from your mental process and your thought process.  And what I’m realizing is that just a tiny little change in my mental approach or my thoughts … when I make tiny movements in my body which the whole sense is, and just all … You have to be authentic in what you are asking the horse to do, because if you’re not, the horse will pick up on it.  I mean, I guess all horses being somewhat hardened to, you know, beginners and things that others who are not sensitive to how they’ve ridden it does.

It’s amazing the difference it makes, and I sort of apply that to life and it makes me think very much about clarity.  I think I’m clear on my purpose, and my passion is to work in this area and to be really, really clear about what I’m offering to my clients and also to my personal life.  Sometimes I think people wonder why what they thought they wanted isn’t turning out.  And I just wonder whether sometimes it’s because actually you thought you were clear but you’re not 100% clear; there’s some doubt there.  There’s something that’s not clicked into place.

Toni: Well, Louise, I can tell you that listening to your interview today and how you have taken … when we’ve gotten to what you need as far as to be inspired and also for your own potential and to use that, use the word of being clear and knowing what you want and if it’s not heading in that direction then to clarify are you really clear.  I would imagine that then absolutely then transfers into your client and your approach.

If someone is looking to make that move and they are going abroad and they are looking to start a new life, then they have to be clear on their purpose and they have to clarify what they want and be very clear on what their skills and strengths are to keep them and make them successful on this journey.  So it is really interesting for me in this interview to hear what you do, then what you need, and how that translates into your clients.

Louise: Yes, it is fascinating.  That’s the thing that happens is that you put the two together here to be whole.  But yes, I think that’s very, very true.  And I think the problem for a lot of my clients is they don’t start the transition to a new life abroad with all of that thought very clearly.  It would be great to see them before they make that move and make sure the whole clarity issue was there, and often it’s not so.  I’m picking them up somewhere along the process where the clarity has become muddled and fuzzy by experience, and then having to redefine it.  That’s certainly how I hope I inspire.

It’s funny, even to think of the word inspiration, inspiring, you know.  When I first thought about it, well that’s something, you know?  You listen to a charismatic speaker and you’re inspired, and I guess there’s an external input in there.  But I think the inspiration that really makes the difference is what comes from within.  It’s being clear about where you’re going and what you want and therefore being able to inspire oneself.  Because external inspiration can have an impact up to a point, but it’s not there all the time.  You have to also manage it personally, having things drawn internally.

Toni: Well, absolutely, and I cannot tell you how much we appreciate that you have shared in this snapshot of time your approaches and your needs.  And I know that people who are reading and listening to your interview will benefit from this and learn from this, and for that, I thank you.

Louise: Thank you very much for the opportunity, and all the best with the program in the next, however many, 300 days.  I’ll listen to them with interest.  I think it’s fascinating.

Toni: Well thank you, Louise, it’s been a pleasure to meet you.  Take care.

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For more information about Louise Wiles:  www.SuccessAbroadCoaching.com

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