Day 48: Rhonda Hess

November 17, 2009 at 12:01 am, Category: Inspiration

“I believe that we all have unlimited potential.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t think we have limitations, because I think that part of life is that paradox of learning to live with some of your limitations.  But I do believe that we can always be surprised and excited by our growth and our developmental path, and that potential, I think, happens in sort of these little explosions or blooms … ”

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Rhonda, for agreeing to be part of this project, and before we go into the questions, can you please introduce yourself?

Rhonda Hess: You bet!  Thank you so much, Toni, for this opportunity.  I just love what you are doing!

Toni: Thank you.

Rhonda: My name is Rhonda Hess, and the name of my company is Prosperous Coach.  I have a website called prosperouscoachblog.com with lots of information about what I do.  And what I do is to work with professional life and business coaches to help them target and champion one viable target market so that they can leverage their time, build a big buzz about their offers, and stay off of the money-for-time treadmill so that they can blast through their income ceiling; and I know that’s a lot of things.  I found that coaches are such heartful, amazing people, and many of them don’t know how to go about getting enough clients so that they can touch enough people’s lives and really do the work that they find soul satisfying.  So that’s what my service is all about, is helping coaches find that way to be big on their own terms.

Toni: When we go into the first question, Rhonda, and it just comes beautifully off of your introduction, and you think about the coaches you work with or just life in general from your perspective — thinking about inspiration — who do you inspire and how do you go about that?

Rhonda: Well, I would love to believe that I inspire my clients and the people who are members in my program, and I believe that I do do that.  And I think sometimes I even inspire somebody who I don’t intend to inspire; that’s really a thrill, isn’t it?  And sometimes it’s another service entrepreneur or just a friend.  I don’t know that I go around really in life planning to inspire people, but I really believe that it’s a powerful thing to be able to do that.

Toni: How do you think you might?  If you’ve received feedback from people or, like you said, that unintentional person that you’ve inspired, how do you think that happens?

Rhonda: I think it mostly happens by hearing their vision of what they want in their life and what they want in their coaching business, particularly.  When I hear an entrepreneur’s vision, I get inspired.  And I think it’s very easy then to reflect back, almost mirror back, what they’re telling me and what their vision is so that they can also get inspired.

Toni: So there’s a lot of listening, a lot of really taking on board what these people are saying so that you can dive into them a bit and help inspire them.  I wonder then, how that might help them explore their potential as well?

Rhonda: What a great idea.  I think that oftentimes, especially people who are building a new business – and you can tell that I have a lot of passion for entrepreneurs – when someone’s building a new business or maybe expanding a model of their business, it’s pretty scary.  There’s a lot of trepidation about taking the risk and being big enough, being bold enough to do what it is that they’ve envisioned.

And I think that where the potential comes in is helping them see that if I’m excited about their vision and I can see it — I can actually see it coming into the concrete realm, and maybe even give them a few ideas about what that might look like, not ideas that I’m attached to them taking, but ideas that just get their ideas sparked and moving forward — then they can rise up or lift out of that scared place and see the value of crossing that threshold into taking that risk and starting to actually take steps that will bring their vision into the concrete world.

Toni: I wrote down, as I’m listening to you, that you basically are lighting the match for people.  You are that spark.  I’m hearing words like “scary” and helping them to be bolder and take that risk and holding that mirror up almost in a hopeful way, is what I’m hearing.  I think that’s awesome!

Rhonda: I think so, and I think that we all need to see our vision reflected back to us and see that sort of … the initial spark of our inspiration reflected back to us sometimes; because sometimes there are hard days, you know?  And when you’re talking to somebody who hears that you’re having a hard day and understands and has compassion for, but also still is holding the space for that vision to come to life, that has the power to sort of bring you back to your original idea or your original reason, your big “why” for doing what it is that you’re doing.

Toni: When you hold that mirror up for others and you’re helping them explore the potential of their business or themselves personally, does the vision ever look different to them once that mirror is held up?

Rhonda: Ah, interesting question … you know, I think sometimes it does.  I think sometimes there’s an “ah-ha!” about the how; how are they going to move forward?  Because that’s always the big question that gets people stuck.  And so, sometimes there’s an “ah-ha!” about that, and sometimes there’s just a deepening.

I think that if you’re not a natural visionary but yet you still really want to do something with your life — you want to contribute to your community in a new way or you want to do something more meaningful with your work time, or you want to create a new business, something like that — sometimes what’s really missing is the full depth of the vision.   So sometimes when it’s reflected back, it allows them to go deeper and to sort of have the permission to see more details.

Toni: It’s almost the full-length mirror, isn’t it, rather than a handheld mirror.

Rhonda: Yeah, well said!

Toni: Now when you think of inspiration for yourself and in your personal life or however that translates into your professional life, what do you need to be inspired?

Rhonda: I need to slow down.  When I’m rushing about and trying to check things off the list and my focus is really on tasks, I tend to get contracted and sort of … even blinders go on.  And I think my mind might close around what I’m doing as opposed to lifting up my eyes and being able to look out to the future and even also enjoy the present.  So slowing down is, I think, the way that I get re-inspired, and the word inspire is really about taking a breath.  It’s really about inspiring, respiration, being able to stop and breathe in and really be with your breath.

So when I slow down, that’s when I have the opportunity to get inspired.  And then there’s also just being with other people.  I find nature very inspiring.  And when I say nature, I mean anything alive, whether it’s an animal, or a tree, or a human being, and to be with people I find really inspiring, to listen to what they’re doing and what sparks them.  And that’s why it’s so perfect for me to be a coach and a consultant, because when I’m working with my clients, I get inspired.

Toni: So it’s reciprocated, isn’t it?

Rhonda: Absolutely.

Toni: Are there tools that you reach for, Rhonda, that help you to slow down so that you can be inspired and re-inspire yourself?

Rhonda: Well, lately I’m reaching for meditation.  I’ve never been a great meditator, but I’m learning.  And for me right now, walking mediation or meditation where I just really focus on my breath is helpful.  The other thing I like to do is really send my thoughts away to try to get away from the things that I’m chewing on; you know, the worries or concerns that I might have or the things that I’m trying to figure out with my big brain.  And so just let go of that and really go into my body and just really feel the breath entering my body and let go of any thoughts that I’m having.  Oftentimes what will happen when I just take a quick break like that — maybe 2 minutes of just focusing on my breath — it’s almost like the cobwebs are gone and my neurons are firing on a different level, and then I’m able to really focus.

The other thing I really love to do — and this is a simple tool but I am an external processor and my husband, who is my business partner as well, is such a great partner for me in the sense that I can go in and say to him, “Can I just bounce this off of you?  Would you be my sounding board?”

And he knows these days, and it’s just great … He gets out a clipboard and a pad and he just starts to listen to what I’m saying, and he’ll just jot down any words or phrases that I’m saying and ideas that are coming to mind, and then he’ll hand me that piece of paper.  And it’s such an incredible gift, because a lot of times just by talking out loud I get re-inspired and process things in a much more creative way.

Toni: That’s fantastic; thank you for sharing that.  When you become re-inspired and these thoughts are flowing and the focus is there, how does that help you to explore your potential then?

Rhonda: I believe that we all have unlimited potential.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t think we have limitations, because I think that part of life is that paradox of learning to live with some of your limitations.  But I do believe that we can always be surprised and excited by our growth and our developmental path, and that potential, I think, happens in sort of these little explosions or blooms where you kind of reach what seems like maybe a plateau, but then something will inspire you, something will spark you; it can even be a hard time.

You can go through a dark night of the soul or a time where you’re doubting, or a time where you feel like you failed, and that can create one of these big blooms of potential.  And I think that if we can believe that blooms are going to happen and keep happening in our lives and to be okay with whatever the down times or the small times or the contracted times are, and just to know that out of those things we can be big blooms, and also to allow ourselves to be surprised and excited by those blooms and to say “Wow, I never knew that I could do this” or “I never knew that I would be getting these opportunities” or “I never knew that this would come to me” and to really just bask in that surprise and that excitement and what we couldn’t have known was going to happen in the future.

Toni: And that is the way for you to explore your own potential, which is to almost nurture the bloom for you.  And that’s what I’m hearing that you’re saying is that when you slow down and you allow yourself to focus and take that breath, I’m wondering if that isn’t part of the nurturing process for your own blooms of potential and how that must surprise you.

Rhonda: Well, yeah, and then you know, I think, as you say, that I think of that time to nourish or nurture it as almost planting seeds, if we’re going to take that bloom metaphor further.  Or maybe it’s watering or fertilizing it.  It’s really just allowing yourself to have a downtime.  I really … I’m sort of talking in “yourself” and “you” – and this is really about me.  This is the way that I do it, but I see also in my clients and as I work with people that the potential is unlimited, and it’s just about giving it the chance, letting it come to be in its own natural rhythm and not being frustrated that we’re not all things to all people right now, you know?

Toni: I’ll tell you, the sound bites of information that you have given in this interview are incredible, and I really like the way that you said with your husband, the way that he jots down  your ideas as you’re going through your own flushing of information.  And, to me, what that sounded like is that what your husband does for you is — with that piece of paper that he hands back to you — is holding up your own mirror.  And that’s exactly then what you do for your clients in talking to them and helping them to explore their own potential in a safe and trusting way.  And the information that you’ve provided in this interview, people are definitely going to take away nuggets of information and learn and benefit from it, and for that I so appreciate you giving your time today to the Get Inspired! Project.

Rhonda: Thanks for your inspiring questions; this is so exciting for me to be a part of this.

Toni: Well thank you so much, and I hope that we talk again soon; and I know that people are going to be really, really anxious to hear this interview.

Rhonda: Good.  Thank you, Toni, for what you’re doing.

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For more information about Rhonda Hess:  www.prosperouscoachblog.com

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