Hi lovely,
Last week we were in Norfolk for a family wedding and this week we are back at home. It’s still the Easter holidays so my daughter has been off school. I’ve been getting up at 6am to work until 8am or 9am on Marie Forleo’s B-School, which is her business building school.
There is a prompt from that which I thought would be fun to share. When you are dealing with clients nowadays as an entrepreneur or coach it’s really helpful if people get a sense of who you are and what you love outside the main focus of your work. Marie for example sometimes references the 90s hip hop music that she loves of ‘The Smurfs.’s
Thinking of ten things that you love is a good place to begin and then you can start to weave these things into your blog posts and social media. Another example of this is from the work of my friend and coach buddy Christel Van Gelder who loves coffee, elephants and dogs and weaves these passions into her social media. Then there is Mastercoach Susan Hyatt who loves her early morning runs and Beyoncé music.
One way of doing this is to write your own list of ten things that you love and then get your partner or someone close to you to tell you ten things that they have noticed that you love. It’s interesting to see what matches up and what is different.
Here are my lists:
Ten things I love:
Self-help books and sourcing books (including children’s books for my daughter). I explained to my husband that the point of this list was to use these threads in my social media so that you get to know me better and one example would be to photograph the books I get from the library from Instagram. He joked that I would need a wide-angle lens for this. Funny and so true!
Cooking healthy food – I cook mainly from the ‘Deliciously Ella’ books. I notice though that even though I am a confident cook sometimes it is not something I love because when you’re doing it every night in the midst of a busy life it sometimes is not so fun. Hmmm, maybe I prefer the eating healthy food bit to the cooking of it!
Ballet – I take ballet classes for 45 mins to an hour a day for six days a week. I wouldn’t say I loved it when I’m holding a plank longer than my body feels like but I would certainly miss this if I didn’t do it. It’s a tough and disciplined to do that I enjoy the longer term benefits of so it’s worth it for me. I always wonder when people say they don’t exercise because they don’t love it / it’s hard. It is hard and there are moments or days when I don’t want to but I make it a habit and push through.
Flat-coated retrievers – We have Bertie a 12-year-old flattie that we have had since he was a pup. He sings when any of us play piano. He sits on his haunches to have his tummy tickled. He is the kindest most optimistic dog to have around and still believes he is a puppy. Churchill talked about the ‘black dog’ of depression. He obviously had never come across a black flattie.
Chocolate – My Easter Egg this year was a Deliciously Ella Chocolate energy ball. I also love Nakd bar chocolate and orange flavour. I make hot chocolate with Green and Blacks cocoa powder, honey and almond milk. I was brought up with Thornton’s chocolates but try to make these healthier choices now and don’t have these healthier choices everyday. I love looking at chocolatiers displays and the smell in a chocolate shop. European chocolate shops can be amazing cathedrals to chocolate.
National Trust House visits – I’ve loved visiting historic houses since I was a child. Some things never change. I love the grandeur and imagining what it once was like.
Flowers – I am a qualified florist as when we were living in Lincolnshire I travelled the long winding road to Lincoln every Thursday night to study for City and Guilds floristry. I also love seeing beautiful cutting gardens. I loved visiting ‘The Lost Gardens of Heligan’ in Cornwall and love the gardening style of Sarah Raven.
Romantic comedy – I LOVE a good romantic comedy, sometimes this comes in book form too. I also have the books ‘Writing the Romantic Comedy’ by Billy Mernit and have a full script planned out on cards that I really need to get to sometime.
Social history – I love learning about how people once lived their day-to-day lives. I have a particular interest in life in WWII. I also love period drama which won’t always be true to the social history, but is great fun anyway.
Fashion, beauty and textiles – I used to be much more interested in this and spend a lot more time on it. I read a lot of fashion books, magazines and beauty info. What I found though is reading this kind of thing didn’t make me feel very good about myself and made me to want a lot of things that I didn’t really need so I don’t dabble here so much now.
Then I asked my husband what he thought I loved. Here’s the list he came up with:
- books – yes, top of the list and so utterly obvious for me.
- self-improvement – coachy love and personal love of this.
- Bertie – our flat coated retriever.
- Dragonfly Redbush Tea with Vanilla – I get though a box a week. This is something I don’t do in moderation.
- Being at home when it’s raining outside – yes so true. I even used to like working in class on maths when it was raining outside.
- historical buildings – yes, I don’t just love National Trust buildings I love any building that is historical. At one point I worked for The Landmark Trust who restore historical buildings.
- seeing my daughter do creative things – this is interesting as it is so true and yet I realise that maybe part of this is that I also want to be doing the creative things for myself. I love the blogs ‘The Artful Parent’ and ‘Playful Learning’. I think this love of developing creativity grew as I was a teacher. I learned to be creative myself through working through ‘The Artist’s Way,’ but I tend to funnel my creativity into my business now and I notice I’d like to be using it in other ways too.
- classic cars – I always feel delighted when I see a classic car. I used to work in an aircraft museum and also love vintage planes.
- romantic comedy – this was on my list too. If you know of any great romantic comedies let me know.
- being warm in bed – true and also funny as my husband does not like to be really warm in bed. I have been know to be under a 13.5 tog duvet with a quilt on top. I try to keep all the covers to my side so that my husband does not melt.
So what about you? What are ten things you love? Then can you get someone close to you to write ten things they think that you love and see if they match up or what’s different?
This is fun just to find out more about yourself but you can also use these things as touch points in your online presence.
Work with me
If you are a kind creative woman who wants to move past your blocks to reach your potential I’d love to work with you. I can help you find clarity on what you want, feel less insecure, let go when things are not perfect and find your true courage.
At the moment I am offering a free 30-minute introductory call so we can find out if we are a good coaching match. Email me at deborah@deborahchalk.com and I’ll send you the link to schedule.