A Bit of Homework ...

Here's an exercise that I give my clients for homework. It's not as easy as it appears, and is quite revealing.

Make a list of 20 statements starting with "I am..."

And another 20 statements that start with "I want..."

Take a few days to complete the exercise, come back to your lists when a thought pops into your mind.

When you have 20 of each, circle the top 5 that you truly desire to focus on. Set the steps to the goal and get started towards reaching your goals.

List of Firsts ...

First memory – the smell of my great Aunt’s Italian deli

First steps – according to my mother 7 months old, which I find hard to believe

First word – also according to my mother – airplane, I’m still fascinated by flying

First dream job – to work with Jacques Costeau and become a marine biologist

First artwork – a still life pastel drawing of a fern, an empty chianti bottle and a Turkish coffee pot

First artwork admired – "Salome", Metropolitan Museum of Art, Henri-Alexandre-Georges Regnault. I still love her!

First pet – a turtle, which after a long weekend away my mother thought was dead in his little palm tree oasis, and we ceremoniously flushed him down the toilet. As he hit the water he swam and my brother and I were screaming to fish him out. The things mother’s will do for their kids – she stuck her hand in the swirling flushing toilet and pulled him out!

First travel – technically flying from Texas to NY but I have no memory of it as a less than 1 year old. To Florida as a 5 year old, and to Europe as a 6th grader.

First car – a powder blue Toyota Corolla which was previously owned by my father … that thing ran for 100,000+ miles

First job – store clerk

First creative job – as a line producer

First shoot – a commercial for P&G

First long format – a film for the American Cancer Society

First Episodic TV show producer – Spy Game, a flop.

What are your firsts?

Marketing Tips

On my daily commute I listen and view podcasts from TED and Harvard Business Review.

Today I listened to a talk by a marketing professor at Harvard and the major piece of knowledge I received was "Businesses need to think about Marketing as an investment not an expense".

It was eye-opening for me and needed to share ... we need to adopt this mindset as well.

Happy learning!

Inspirations

Below are some quotes that are in-line with our methodologies as consultants and coach. Enjoy!

"Before anything else, preparation is the key to success." Alexander Graham Bell

"If you treat an individual as he is, he will stay as he is, but if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought and could be." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"What we pay attention to, and how we pay attention, determines the content and quality of life." Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"One cannot teach a man anything, One can only enable him to learn from within himself." Galileo Galilei

"We may need to solve problems not by removing the cause but by desinging the way forward even if the cause remains in place." Edward De Bono


"Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it." Wilferd Peterson

Competitions...

One way to stand-out in the marketplace is to enter competitions and exhaust all avenues for your art. Recognition for your art is an excellent marketing tool for your commercial career.

Here are a few interesting competitions to submit your photography:

23 Sandy Gallery theme Shelter Deadline 10/3/08

Center for Photography theme of Negative Space Deadline 10/14/08

Women in Photography Competition Call for Entry Deadline 11/1/08

Peter Hay Halpert Gallery portfolio reviews Deadline - ongoing

Nikon Photo Contest International Deadline 11/30/08

Julia Dean Workshops New Documentarian Award for Long Term Project Deadline 12/12

PX3 Short term competition on the theme of Water Deadline 12/14

Julia Dean Workshops Alternative Photography Contest and Exhibition Deadline 6/26/09

The Berenice Abbott Prize for Emerging Photographer Deadline 7/17/09

The Difference between Coaching and Therapy

As I'm now a student again - I've enrolled in classes back at my alma mater NYU - I'm going to be sharing some of my learnings...

The Difference between Coaching & Therapy

Coaching is collaborative, creative, empowering, self-directed, goal oriented, positve and specific. Therapy is clinical, requires expertise in diagnosis and assessment, is problem focused, healing, and deals often with the past.

Coaching is a learning developmental model that focuses on goals and possibilities. Therapy is a medical clinical model that deals with identifiable dysfunctions.

As a coach my role is as a catalyst for change. I offer perspectives and help clients discover their own answers. As a coach I'm responsible for the process, the client is responsible for results.

Back from France

I'm recently back from a business trip to France and Italy. I've traveled there before, but it's the first time I was at the Cote d'Azur - spectacular! This is the town of Villefranche - quaint, beautiful and picturesque. I'm always amazed by the lifestyle of the Europeans, I've now grown to love the 12-2pm shut down for lunch ... time to run personal errands, meet with friends, have lunch with family ... it's so civilized and they seem to have happy balanced lives ... something I strive for.

10 Things You Didn't know about Angela

1. was a former film producer and still considers herself a producer - now it's careers.


2. loves to travel.


3. is curious.


4. is a life-long learner.


5. has a 12 year old jack russell terrier samson who despite being a "terror" puppy he's now her constant companion.


6. loves a challenge.


7. relates to the Robert Frost poem The Road Not Taken.


8. always jumps in.


9. is a swimmer, painter and singer.


10. makes her own sauce.