something ironic happened today

and you know how much i love irony - you do right?

soooo at this seminar thing i was at, which is all about online marketing, this morning's session was all about how to 'build a relationship' with your customers before you 'sell' to them - i like that - it resonates with me on many levels and for someone who does the sort of work i do it is critical that people feel they like me or can relate to me or just feel comfortable with me...so in a way, i guess i'm pretty much like that too, when i'm choosing to do 'personal development' type work with someone...

sooo yesterday morning (first day of the course) one of the tasks is to think about and then, if we'd like, to share our 'non negotiables' - meaning what are the aspects of our life/work that we won't compromise when making work based decisions (it's not a new concept and of course i have a mental list, but it was a fantastic exercise to reflect on how i make decisions in my business, especially since i turned down some work on thursday night) - so i shared mine, and i admit, they were not as eloquently summarised as i would normally be (this being because we had only 3 minutes to document them and i didn't feel the need to have them pefected, as it were)....

i was comfortable to share though and didn't really give it much more thought, other than to think what a cool exercise (and one to be sure to share wtih 2 of my colleagues/friends...neither of whom could attend)....

sooo imagine my surprise this morning, immediately following the big discussion about 'not selling before you've built rapport', when at morning tea as i'm making my tea (and in my INFJ way, thinking about something that means i am a million miles away from where I am physically standing, in my head anyway) and one of the 'support team' says to me "Hi Sarah, if you'd like any help refining (actually he didn't use the word refining, he used something else, something that to me felt disingenous and off the top of my head i can't think of it, but it will undoubtedly come back to me) your goals I'd be happy to help you"......so my initial reaction is 'sorry, i didn't catch what you said' because honestly i was a million miles away (thoughts of 'this isn't as good as yesterday', 'i'm tired'...wondering what someone was doing etc all floating around my head not expecting to be interrupted, which is actually, how i felt...).....

sooo he repeats himself and i'm so proud of myself, because as a coach (and a good one) and someone who believes that the work i do can only be successful when there is congruency and rapport and trust etc, my initial reaction (which thankfully stayed in my head and had the benefit of the inner critic before it came out ofmy mouth) was 'fuck off, did you not listen to the last 90 minutes?'.....but no, the very graceful moi said 'thank you, but i think i'm ok'....

seriously, what an idiot! so couple of things he should know - firstly, he didn't KNOW his target audience, and secondly, he didn't even bother to find out that I too am a coach (and not that this means i am above being coached by someone else - on the contrary, but perhaps it should have made him aware that perhaps as a fellow coach i might choose someone who i felt met the required criteria to coach me...)...

oh well, these little demonstrations of irony that the universe provides are gems - they really are! they serve well as reminders of what is important to me and how i want to live my life, but moreso about how i want to 'be' with others.....