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The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of Coaching Techniques

November 19, 2010 By 1 Comment

Is There A “Bad And Ugly” Side To Using Coaching Techniques? | Image by uConnectsiteSpecific coaching techniques are a critical tool of effective coaches. During your training and your early days as a coach, learning all the techniques you can is a wonderful strategy. Not only do they improve your coaching results, but perhaps even more importantly they give you some confidence. As you grow more comfortable in your career though, it’s a good idea to review the techniques you use, see what their good and bad points are, and make sure you’re using them in the best way.

Why Use Coaching Techniques?

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As a coach you probably use visualizations, anchors, pattern interrupts and a variety of other specific techniques. You use them because they help you figure out what’s going on for your clients. They help your clients work through problems that get in their way. They help provide motivation to take action, and they are often the most quick and effective approach to getting your client moving toward his goals. But what about the negatives of using specific learned coaching techniques? Is there any risk?

Is There A “Bad And Ugly” Side To Using Coaching Techniques?

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There are two main risks for you as a coach when you use coaching techniques in a session. The first is getting so caught up in doing the technique correctly that you lose sight of the actual client you are working with. You have to be familiar enough with the script of the technique that none of your attention is on you and what you are saying or doing, and all of it is on your client. Otherwise you may lose rapport and have a client who feels you don’t “understand” him or relate to him. Get to the point where you are so clear and so familiar with whatever technique you are using that the technique itself is not a distraction.

The second risk is not staying present in the session. No matter how useful any particular coaching technique might be, it cannot take precedence over your basic coaching skills. Be sure you carry on with active listening, clarifying and acknowledging what your client says, and noticing limiting patterns in your client’s speech or behavior. It’s up to you as the coach to run the session and lead the conversation.

Coaching techniques make you a stronger coach—just make sure that you control them, not the other way around.

By the way… you’re invited to claim your FREE step-by-step “Master Coach Blueprint” video toolkit. Just go HERE now to get your master coach blueprint videos.

Dorine G Kramer
JTS Strategy and Accountability Coach

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When Not To Use Coaching Techniques On Your Clients

November 18, 2010 By 2 Comments

Using Life Coaching Techniques On Your Clients | Image by asu-llcThere are some times when it’s disastrous to use life coaching techniques on your clients. While it sounds a bit unlikely, coaching techniques can backfire and wreck havoc on your life and the lives of others. Don’t let this happen to you.

When Using Life Coaching Techniques Can Get You Into Trouble

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1. When you are using coaching techniques without consent from the person you are trying to coach. This is often seen as manipulative, and if you use it within the context of a complimentary session you will lose the client. This also goes for the client who is termed, “un-coachable.” Get them to be in a place where they are coachable first so your coaching techniques will make a difference in their lives.
2. Before they commit to coaching. Before your client is truly enrolled, the relationship at best is tenuous. People know they might be asked to purchase services, so they start with their arms crossed. Be flexible with these people when it comes to navigating around their obstacles; including setting up the most convenient time for them to do a free-session with you. Not the other way around.
3. When you are not in the right state of mind. If you need anything from your client, whether it’s coaching fees, a pat on the back, or closure regarding one of your own issues, stop. Get yourself in the right state of mind to be there for your client 100% and leave your baggage at the door.
4. If they have just had a major catastrophe in their life. While we want to teach our clients to be unstoppable, there is a time and place for accountability. Make sure you check in with your clients at the beginning of the session for updates. You want to step into their world before you start coaching them so you can coach them from where they are, not where you think they should be.

A Final Warning

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You will attract clients who are like you, and with that you will get clients who have similar challenges to you. Make sure you acknowledge this so you don’t use your coaching techniques on others to solve your own issues. In order to help your clients grow, you need to put yourself into environment that will ensure you continue to grow.

Special Bonus – Learn 32 ‘Guru’ Transformation Techniques when you fill in the form at the top right and click the “Watch The Videos Now” button. You’ll learn how to become a life coach in 30 days.

Colette Seymann
JTS Advisors Designated Accountability Coach

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Coaching Techniques: The Power Of Saying What’s On Your Mind

September 24, 2010 By 1 Comment

The simplest coaching techniques are often the most effective.  If you can say what’s on your mind, you allow your clients to do the same.  In fact, if you are wondering something and don’t ask your client you are really ripping them off by staying shallow.  Some questions may have a taboo feeling, but unless you get to an emotional level of conversation you won’t be able to transform your coaching clients.  These techniques can help you get started.

Coaching Techniques To Rock The Boat

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1.   When your clients don’t follow through on their commitments, call them on it.  Don’t step over anything.  Most people are afraid to do this with their friends because they want to be let off the hook when they don’t follow through, or they don’t want alienate their friends.  They don’t want to risk the friendship.  You might be the only one in their lives that is willing to take a stand for them.

2.   Use language that is outside the usual constraints of polite conversation.   Be willing to shock someone.  If you go too far, you can always backpedal, but you are looking to get an emotional response from your client.  Unless they feel the impact, they won’t be willing to make a change.

3.  Use metaphors that create an emotional vision.  One client was not taking action toward her goal to become a life coach and was caught up in reasons why she wasn’t able to do what she needed.   I had just come back from a vacation and the vision of how hard hotel maids work and don’t seem to get much, if any acknowledgment.  I used these coaching techniques with my client and told that she would be better off getting a steady job as a hotel maid.  She got very upset, but it shocked her enough for her to realize that if she wanted a great life it was going to take commitment.

Be Willing To Get Your Hands Dirty

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If you are not more committed to your clients’ success than your own, you risk trying to look good and the best coaching techniques won’t be effective.  You have to be willing to wrestle in the emotional mud to create a breakthrough.

Special Bonus – Learn 32 ‘Guru’ Transformation Techniques when you fill in the form at the top right and click the “Watch The Videos Now” button. You’ll learn how to become a life coach in 30 days.

Colette Seymann
JTS Advisors Designated Accountability Coach

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Coaching Techniques to Get Your Clients to Tell You What They Really Want From Their Coaching Session: Life Coach Tips to Help You Get Into Your Clients’ Worlds

September 24, 2009 By 4 Comments

Life Coaching Techniques That Help You to Meet Your Clients’ Needs, Especially When they Aren’t Good at Communicating

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Today I was asked, “When there is cultural barrier or if clients are shy, what coaching techniques are effective at getting your client to open up and communicate the needs they need meet in their coaching session? What coaching tips to do have to get me past the awkward silence when a client can’t think of anything they want to work on?” The first life coach tips I offered him was to stop buying into these clients’ stories, and then I shared these coaching techniques with him.

Life Coach Tips to Get Into Your Clients’ Heads

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Life Coaching Techniques #1: Be sure you’ve gained rapport with your client. Get to know them by asking them about themselves. The most important aspect of these life coach tips is to find something that you really admire about the client. Compliment them, back it up with the reason you admire that quality or achievement, and then ask them to share how they were able achieve that outcome.

Life Coaching Techniques #2: Go back to their goals. The reason this coach was having trouble was that his client didn’t have ambitious goals, their goals would be achieved with or without coaching. So there wasn’t anything to discuss. Make sure your clients have S.M.A.R.T. goals: Specific, Measurable, Ambitious, have a Reason, and Time frame to achieve that goal by. Once you know what goals that matter to your clients, you have accessed their emotions. They key to successful coaching is to take people beyond an ordinary conversation and into innermost desires. Without these life coach tips you are not going to be able to move people past their greatest fears and frustrations and toward their greatest aspirations.

Life Coaching Techniques #3: Be the one person who is willing to take a stand for and believe in the possibilities. The most important life coach tips are to not buy into their “stories” and to let them know when they are running their usual pattern. For example, someone who comes up with goals that are not ambitious and doesn’t have any idea about what they want to work on in a coaching session may really be living in fear of loosing certainty or significance. They may lack confidence in their own abilities, not want to loose face in front of their peers, or just fear making any move into the “unknown.” Let your client know what they are doing, help them see what it is costing them, and provide an empowering alternative.

Implement These Life Coach Tips to Make a Difference in Your Clients’ Lives

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With these three coaching techniques you will be able to crack the toughest nut open, and start making a difference in that person’s life. As you use these life coach tips, make sure you remember that you are the leader. You set the pace and it is your job as their coach to find out how to get the results they really want.

Colette Seymann

JTS Advisors Designated Accountability Coach

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Relationship Coach Training: Coaching Techniques to Help People Find Harmony

May 10, 2009 By 2 Comments

 

The fastest way to get great relationship coach training is to understand assessments. Studies such as the DISC and Values Assessments will give you more information in 20 minutes than many skilled relationship coaches or marriage & family therapists could get in several months using their best coaching techniques. The reason for this is that these tests have a 93% reliability, as well as a “cheater” factor build into the tests for people who might accidentally try to look a “good”. Once you have the assessment results, the rest of this relationship coach training will be easy.

Using Coaching Techniques to Decide if This Couple Should Be “Encouraged”: Relationship Coach Training to Help Your Clients

 

The first strategy of this relationship coach training is to look at the values assessment. One of the quickest coaching techniques to see if people are compatible is to look at the values assessments. If the couple doesn’t share at least 2 of their 3 top values, it’s a recipe for disaster. Even if “opposites attract”, unless a couple has enough similarities there won’t be enough glue to hold the relationship together over time. If a couple shares similar values, you can encourage them. Even if things are challenging in the moment, there is hope for the future with a little relationship coach training and a few coaching techniques to help them get on track.

Relationship Coach Training to Help You Understand The “Opposites Attraction” Coaching Techniques


The next strategy you can immediately implement from this relationship coach training is to look at the assessments to compare personality styles and communication styles. Just because one person is an introvert and the other is an extrovert doesn’t necessarily mean a couple will struggle. The old adage, “Opposites attract” still holds true. In fact an introvert might really appreciate that his partner connects with interesting people and that allows him to meet people within his comfort zone. Of course, he might pull his hair out waiting for his extrovert wife who takes 40 minutes to say goodbye to everyone at a party. Understanding the strengths that each personality trait brings to the table is one of the best coaching techniques you can use to help create mutual respect and admiration. Since variety is the spice of life; a little spice in a relationship is a good way to keep things from getting boring.

Coaching Techniques to Help Your Clients Create Raving Fan Lovers: Hot Relationship Coach Training, Anyone?


Other powerful coaching techniques that you can use without the assessments is to have each partner evaluate at what level their emotional needs are being met in the relationship. Then have each of them make a list of things they would like their partner to do, or do differently. Have each person commit to doing as many of those things as possible for ten days. Have them get creative with other ways to pleasantly surprise their mate within the ten day period, and strive to create a “raving fan” out of their partner. It’s fun, and even if one person “plays the game”, the atmosphere of the relationship can be noticeably improved…even in a relationship that already works well. Maybe you can use some of this relationship coach training in your own life.

Colette Seymann

Designated Accountability Coach, JTS Advisors

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How to Become a Success Coach Who Understands the Keys to Fulfillment and Achievement: Coaching Techniques That You Can Use to Inspire People

January 30, 2009 By 2 Comments

 

What does it take to become a success coach? The first of the coaching techniques is to recognize that there are two ingredients to success:

Motivation – People are motivated by two things, pain and pleasure. In general we are motivated to go toward things that cause pleasure, and away from things that cause pain.

Fulfillment – It is a matter of feeling good MOST of the time.

To become a success coach, you need to find out what people really want and then help them achieve that. Celebration is an essential ingredient in motivation AND fulfillment, and can be used as a coaching technique. Someone who has become a success coach and understands this can really make a powerful difference in a person’s life. Most people rarely give themselves much credit when they accomplish something, and simply go on to the next task. This cycle can lead to burnout, lack of fulfillment, and poor motivation. This is why giving permission to celebrate is one of the most powerful coaching techniques you can use.

Here are 4 specific coaching techniques to become a success coach who can help a client celebrate:


  1. Help your clients find a way to reward themselves.

  2. Make sure they take action on the reward.

  3. Have your clients notice when they start to feel good as they reward themselves.

  4. When they are feeling really good, have them answer these questions:

    1. What am I celebrating?

    2. Why is that worth celebrating?

    3. Why was it an important goal? How does that make me feel?

    4. What did I do to achieve that goal?

    5. Who have I become in the process? Who will I become in the future?

Within a few minutes of using these coaching techniques, you can become a success coach who can lead people to motivate themselves and find fulfillment in their accomplishments. And what about celebrating your own victories? Could you become a success coach who takes their own advice and uses these coaching techniques? Have fun!

Colette Seymann

JTS Advisors Accountability Coach

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Life Coach Training: Super Coaching Techniques to Help Your Clients Overcome Burnout

January 23, 2009 By 1 Comment

We could all use a little extra life coach training in this area. Clients may KNOW what they want to DO, but they don’t DO what they KNOW they need to do. For 9 out of 10 clients, Fear or Boredom is their biggest challenge. In the process of trying to get through their blocks, they often burn themselves out. 

Here are some “Super Coaching Techniques“ to help your clients start moving forward.

“Super Coaching Techniques” #1 – Understanding the problem. As clients keep pushing themselves more and more, burnout can cause a clients’ life to “circle the drain”.

Burnout can keep them from:

  • Money
  • Freedom
  • Success

Burnout can affect their health, and lead to adrenal exhaustion. This happens when someone is using adrenaline so much during the day, that they deplete their adrenaline stores and get sick.

“Super Coaching Techniques” #2 – Recovering from Physical burnout:

To do this, your client needs to:

  • Get 7 hours of rest per night, minimum.
  • Drink 3 + liters of water daily.
  • Eat lightly. Have them stop eating before the are satiated.
  • Get 30 minutes of exercise, at least 2 times per week

Remember to use all your life coach training skills to provide support and accountability.

“Super Coaching Techniques” #3 – Overcoming Psychological burnout:

No amount of willpower will combat psychological burnout (There’s just never enough will power to go around.) There are 2 aspects of this problem. Fear and Procrastination, which are problems of motivation.

  • Fear: moving away from pain
  • Procrastination: very low motivation

How do you recover from psychological burnout?

If willpower doesn’t work, then what will? Here’s a mini life coach training to help your clients rekindle their passion:

Mini Life Coach Training STEP 1: Have your clients select their MOST IMPORTANT Goal…

probably not their short term goal unless they are just really stuck in the moment. Ideally this would be their 3-5 year dream. Have your clients visualize their dream, make it big, and then turn up the brightness. Then have them step into the picture and see it through their own eyes, instead of as an observer.

Then, ask them 4 questions:

  • What will you get when you achieve this goal?
  • How will it feel when you get each of those rewards? (Have them be specific with the emotions, i.e. loved, fulfilled.)
  • What would the negative consequences be if you did not achieve this result?
  • How would it feel to deal with those negative consequences?

Mini Life Coach Training STEP 2: Breaking though Burnout in the Long Term.

Have your client create a long term vision. A goal that will take 5-20 years to achieve. This will be the “tide” that keeps them going even through small “ripples” of life. 

  • What could they be the best in the world at? 
  • What are they most passionate about? 
  • What could they do to make money? 
  • What could they do to make a difference in the world?

You can also tap into your clients ‘control room’ in their mind with this powerful coaching technique:

Picture the brain as the control room. To access the controls, you can use language (i.e. self-talk, etc.), focus/belief (stay focused on the positive, create supportive beliefs), or physiology (smile, stand up straight, breathing techniques, etc.). Physiology is the #1 key, which is why we started this mini life coach training with diet, exercise, and hydration.

Get your clients to grab the controls.

  • Have them stand up (This gets them to change their physiology)
  • Have your client visualize a moment of passion in their past. (This gets them to use focus).
  • Then have them visualize a moment of passion in their future (This gets them to use focus).
  • Ask them how those moment make them feel, and encourage them to talk about their feeling more.  (This gets them to use language patterns)

Mini Life Coach Training STEP 3: Get Your Client to Take Action Towards Their Goals.

Keep your client accountable to taking action in the direction of their goals and vision.  This will create some momentum in that direction and reinforce all the coach training techniques your just learned.

Using these powerful coaching techniques will help just about anyone move from being burnt out, to back on track for success.

Colette Seymann

JTS Advisors Accountability Coach

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Coaching Techniques if You Want to Know How to Become a Life Coach

January 21, 2009 By 4 Comments

 

How to provide massive value during a single coaching session & How you can make people feel they’ve obtained the best coaching from you

 

Everyone who wants to learn how to become a life coach needs coaching techniques that create value for every coaching session you give. The best coaching techniques involve getting out of your own head and getting into someone else’s head. Specifically when learning how to become a life coach, and really trying to provide massive value for someone, to help them shift…you will need to get into their head. 

What does that mean? It means going beyond understanding where someone is coming from, it means understanding them so well that you feel the emotions they are feeling and experiencing the situations WITH them.

 

What coaching techniques do you need to use to get into someone’s head? Assuming you have rapport with them, you can start by asking them about their goals. Find out which 3 things are most crucial to them to achieve in the next 90 days. This will give you valuable information about where they are, where they want to be, and the vehicles they are using. Are they looking for certainty or variety? Are they looking for love & connection or significance? These are the four basic needs for survival.

Once you know this basic information, you want it to become crystal clear…not only to you, but to your client as well. One of the best coaching techniques is to ask questions. You want to really get clear around what their needs are so you know how to become a life coach for them, especially in their eyes.

What’s important about “x”?

What are your beliefs around “x”?

How does that make you feel? How would that make you feel if you could change that?

What’ stopping you from achieving “x”? How has it stopped you in other areas?

What is failing to change costing you?

What’s important to you in your life?

What are you missing out on in your life?

Note their emotions and see how their emotions get their meaning in the context of what’s important to them. This is one of the most important aspects of learning how to become a life coach.

What if they answer, “I don’t know?” That leads to the next step in our list of coaching techniques… Ask more questions. Change your words to reflect your client’s language more. Mirror back to them in tonality, intensity and speed of language. Or you can assume a more dominant posture and tell them…”you DO know.” And wait for their response. Reassure them that they have the answers and that it is ok for them to take the time and find them.

By now you have a lot of information. Now you KNOW how to become a life coach for your client. You should be in their world. If not…ask more questions for clarity. “Tell me more about…” Listen to their words, and try to feel what they are feeling. Feed it back to them to check and see if you really have it. This takes practice, but when you get it right…it’s magic. When they sense that you really understand, they will either tell you with words, you will hear a shift in their voice, or they may simply sigh. You have given them massive value at this point. You may be the first person who has ever taken the time to really understand them. You have now EXPERIENCED how to become a life coach.

Now you are ready for the next step in coaching techniques…after you have “become” that person, quietly step outside and observe from your vantage point. Offer that perspective to your client, which is now filtered through what’s going on with them. This is another opportunity to give value. If you don’t have answers, ask questions rather than telling them what to do.  The real value you can offer as a coach is to be able to help people find their own path.  Ultimately, your client will choose that path themselves, and you’re only a supporter along the way.

Colette Seymann

Accountability Coach, JTS Advisors

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Coaching From Peru for 30 Days

January 16, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Here’s a short video diary of my time last year in Peru, where I vacationed in the Amazon, but also where I ran my coaching business and continued to make money from the Peruvian Andes.

This video shows my new coaching ‘office’ for the next 30 days, and the most important ingredients in an internationally mobile coaching business… wireless internet and a parrot named “Pedro”.

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These next five videos depict my venture into the Peruvian Amazon rainforest.

The areas we spent most of our time in were the Peruvian Andes (highlands), the cloud forest (high altitude rainforest), and the Manu River Wildlife Reserve (lowland amazon rainforest).

Just watch the videos top to bottom to see the entire journey from the Andes to the Amazon.

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Here’s a video of Plaza de Armas in Cusco, Peru (Cusco is the capitol of the ancient Inca empire, but when the Spanish invaded, they built their modern plazas right on top of the Inca ruins)

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Here is a video of a short drive through the busy and sometimes dangerous central plaza of Cusco, Peru.

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Here is a set of COMPLETE videos from my little cooking saga…

I cover selecting good corn in its’ native land of origin, and all the other challenges that come up for a master coach trying to help cook a traditional Peruvian dinner.

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How to Speak With Confidence: 5 Secret Life Coach Tips to Help Find Your Voice as You Become a Coach

January 13, 2009 By 6 Comments

 

Are you ready for some powerful life coach tips that will immediately put you in the fast track and become a coach? 

The biggest fear most people have it that they’re afraid of themselves.  They’re afraid they’re going to embarrass themselves.  They’re afraid that other people are going to see every single thing they’ve ever felt insecure about.  

 

And you know what?  

That’s not likely to happen. 

So here are some ‘life coach tips’ to make it easier for you to become a coach and enjoy the journey: 

Life Coach Tips #1 – RELAX. Have fun, and enjoy the conversation. Speak from the heart. Everything else flows from there. The good news is that if you can’t really relax, people won’t be able to tell anyway (it’s your funeral!).

Life Coach Tips #2 – Make sure what you have to say that has value for your client.  You need to know your client well enough to know what matters to them and to care enough to structure your presentation in such a way that clients will take an immediate interest and remain interested throughout. Remember why you decided to become a coach in the first place.

How do you find out what is valuable for your client?  Ask them these simple questions:

1.  What do you want? What are your goals / dreams?

3.  What are your biggest problems / frustrations?

3.  What are your fears?  

Then ask these same questions in the area that they want your help with.  You’ll get really specific about how to become a coach to those types of clients in that particular niche.

Life coach tips #3 – But what if you are still self-conscious? Stop! It’s not about you. To become a coach, you need to make it about the person or people you are talking to and the information you are sharing with them. Unless you are walking down the “red carpet” in Hollywood, no one is going to remember what you were wearing, or how you sound.  

Believe me, I have coached clients with laryngitis that made me sound like Mrs. Shrek… they don’t remember that. 

As long as you make the conversation about them…and they feel that it truly is all about them. They will forgive and forget everything else.

If you are self-conscious, you are not focusing on the client or their needs. If you’re providing something of value and you’re thinking about your client and their needs, you’re on the right track. You don’t have to be great. You just need to make your client feel you are reaching out to them.

Life coach tips #4 – Know that most people want to like you. Most people are not there to criticize; they’re there to learn, to get some value from what you have to say.  They want to like you, and they will like you unless you give them reason not to.  And one of the best ways to win your client is to talk about what matters to them instead of what matters to you.  Once you understand that and you’re willing to work with your client just about everything else is a detail. Remember, you have become a coach, and it’s time to realize that role by walking your talk.

Life coach tips #5 – Be yourself, speak from the heart, and don’t listen to your own negative self-talk. Become a coach for yourself, or get some outside coaching. Choose some new self-talk that will empower you. For more on this topic try, 

Once you learn these life coach tips, you will realize that you have become a coach with the ability to speak with confidence. And you can start tapping into that power the next time you speak.

Colette Seymann

JTS Advisors Accountability Coach

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