Paul G Bailey
Posts tagged confidence
Group Confidence Coaching
01 week ago
The group coaching sessions are already back in action after a break over December. Our next meetup in 21 Feb at 7pm in Victoria. If you’re interested in coming along then you’ll need to register over at http://www.meetup.com/Confidence-Building-for-Gay-Men
Places are VERY limited, so make sure you get a place by booking up quickly!
Asking for Directions
01 year ago
by Paul Bailey
in Blog
Typically men don’t ask for directions. They’d much rather work it out for themselves. There’s always that sense that their destination will just be around the next corner, or the belief that you know exactly where you went wrong and how you will correct it.
It’s great when you do finally find your way and have a self satisfied feeling that you did it all on your own, even if it did take you three times as long.
Now for your challenge!
Ask someone for directions, even if you already know the way. Why?! I hear you cry. Well this is a great way to practise ice breaking with someone.
One of the most frequently asked questions I get during my group sessions is about small talk. Everyone seems to hate its futility and yet somehow seem to recognise its importance too. Indeed, starting with something light and easy to digest isn’t just a good idea when you are recuperating but it’s a great piece of advise for becoming skilled at the art of starting a conversation.
By starting small you can easily judge someones response and decide where to go from there. So, why ask for directions? It’s really just for practise, and that all! Just by stopping someone in the street and asking them if they know where the nearest ATM is, a local Hotel or a Bar helps you take that first step without too much trouble.
That first step is getting someone’s attention. A lot of people find it hard just to engage random strangers so by having a purpose to interact it makes it a lot easier. I’ll go into “purpose” verses “agenda” in the next blog post.
But for now, enjoy finding the way! You never know where it will lead
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If you are in central London you are welcome to join the group confidence coaching alternatively you can take up my offer of a free trial coaching session.
Press Release: “Confidence Building for Gay Men” Meetup Now Forming in London
01 year ago
by Paul Bailey
in General
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Paul Bailey
Gay Confidence Coach
Phone: 0845 388 3218
Skype user ID: pgbailey
Email: meetup (at) gayconfidencecoach.com
Web: www.gayconfidencecoach.com
“Confidence Building for Gay Men” Meetup Now Forming in London
Paul Bailey, Gay Confidence Coach, Will Offer Strategies
For Building Self-Assurance and Self-Esteem
London, [22 April 2010]—“There’s a common misconception that all gay men are oozing self confidence,” says Paul Bailey, the UK’s Gay Confidence Coach. “This is not always true.”
In response to the need for self-assurance among gay men, Bailey, a noted life coach, facilitates a Meetup.com group called “Confidence Building for Gay Men.” The meetings take place in central London, near the Liverpool Street Station, on the second Thursday of each month at 7:00 p.m.
Meetup.com offers group meetings in locations around the world, enabling participants with common interest to join groups and interact for mutual benefit.
Participants at Paul Bailey’s “Confidence Building for Gay Men” Meetup learn to build self-confidence via visualisation, breathing, and positive association exercises, as well as through body language adjustments, verbal communication techniques, and sharing experiences with other group members.
Bailey explains, “At this Meetup, gay men have the opportunity to meet with like-minded men interested in personal growth, confidence building, and sharing insights into their own journey of personal development.”
Group members have high praise for Paul Bailey’s previous Meetups.
One participant notes, “I found Paul to be very effective at creating a safe and welcoming space. He was skilled at exploring the issues I raised and at summarising what I had said.”
Another attendee shares the enthusiasm: “This meeting was very effective at helping me to get clarity in an area that I have been struggling with for years. I was able to focus on core issues, clarify what was holding me back, and set out a plan for how to take action.”
Still another reports, “If you are a gay man who would like to work on building your confidence, then this is exactly designed for you!”
Those eager to move behind old patterns and step into a new, more confident, and more successful life should be sure to attend these stimulating meetings. For the exact Meetup location, e-mail meetup@gayconfidencecoach.com or phone 0845 388 3218.
About Meetup:
Meetup.com is the world’s largest network of local groups. Meetup.com makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face. More than 2,000 groups get together in local communities each day, each one with the goal of improving themselves or their communities.
Meetup’s mission is to revitalize local community and help people around the world self-organize. Meetup believes that people can change their personal world, or the whole world, by organizing themselves into groups that are powerful enough to make a difference.
About Paul Bailey:
Paul Bailey (www.gayconfidencecoach.com), the UK’s “Gay Confidence Coach,” is an out and proud gay man who helps people add meaning and confidence to their personal and professional lives. Trained at The Coaching Academy, the world’s largest life-coaching school, Paul delivers his coaching expertise through face-to-face individual or group sessions, as well as by telephone and online. Paul’s clients come from diverse backgrounds, including from the worlds of art, business, and academia on both sides of the Atlantic.
Paul’s unique and upbeat approach to life coaching enables each individual to verbalise ideas, goals, and dreams; to explore options; to develop effective directions and plans; and to move forward at a comfortable-yet-productive pace—and all without ever feeling judged or criticised. The result is that Paul’s clients are empowered to focus on possibilities and to achieve maximum fulfilment and success in all aspects of their lives.
Follow Paul Bailey on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/lifecoach
For additional information, visit http://www.meetup.com/Confidence-Building-for-Gay-Men/
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Confidence Group Coaching
01 year ago
by Paul Bailey
in Blog
Due to one of the members having to go abroad for a few days there is now one space available for my next Gay Confidence Building group meetup in central London.
If you would like to come along just pop over to the Meetup.com website and register
These sessions are limited to just 4 members per group, so places are REALLY LIMITED!
I look forward to welcoming you soon!
http://www.meetup.com/Confidence-Building-for-Gay-Men/
The Bad Stuff is Easier to Believe
02 years ago
by Paul Bailey
in Blog
“You look good today.”
“I like your new haircut.”
“We were really proud when we heard the news.”
How many times have you heard variations on the above? You meet up with friends or family, and they pass comment on how you look, or recent events you’ve shared with them. Do you listen to the words, absorb them, and get a feeling of warmth from them? Or do you think to yourself, “Well, that’s all very well, but what aren’t you telling me?”
Why is it that the bad stuff tends to be easier to believe?
In our day to day lives, we come across both praise and criticism from a wide variety of sources. Family and friends, work colleagues, even the media. Whether it’s a comment about our appearance, how we’re doing at work, things we’ve achieved or projects that have fallen flat. Society has its own comments to make about body shape, how to dress, even the colour of your hair can draw praise or criticism.
So why do we find it easier to listen to the bad stuff?
Compliments are good. Being told something positive about yourself, whether from someone you’re close to, or a passing acquaintance, should really lift the spirits. Just the fact that someone has taken the time to let you know, should have you feeling noticed and appreciated. In truth though, how many of us really take these things at face value?
For many, being complimented is at best a source of embarrassment, or at worst, a thinly veiled attack. Have you ever found yourself wondering whether someone is simply saying something nice to detract from something terrible they don’t want to say to you? “Okay, maybe they think my hair looks good …. but why do they keep looking at my coat like that?”
The world today is fast, furious, instant and demanding. The pressures to perform well have grown, both in a personal and professional capacity. All this brings an increased sense of expectation that we have to be at our best, doing our best, all the time. Which, let’s face it, can be a pretty tall order.
So it’s easy to believe that we can’t possibly be doing well, because of the pressures we are putting on ourselves. Whether it’s keeping up with the “Jones’” or knowing there’s still that other piece of work you haven’t finished yet. It’s like the day is never quite long enough, we feel there is always something more we should do.
All any of us can really do though is our best; to try and acknowledge our limits, our strengths and weaknesses; to improve what can be improved, and accept what cannot. And if someone should say something nice, something good about us – try taking it at face value and say “Thank you.” And mean it!
(BTW just in case you were wondering the title of this blog comes from a line in the film Pretty Woman)
Vivian: People put you down enough, you start to believe it.
Edward Lewis: I think you are a very bright, very special woman.
Vivian: The bad stuff is easier to believe. You ever notice that?
Being Gay in Business
32 years ago
by Paul Bailey
in Blog
Being out in business is a very sensitive subject. It depends on so many factors such as the industry you work in, the location of your office, the country you live in, the ethos of the company, the understanding of your boss and the position you hold.
No one else can decide whether or not you should come out in business except you. Then who you come out to can be just as confusing. Do you come out to people in your team or just a select few? Will it benefit you by being able to talk to your boss about what you did over the weekend without having to replace the pronoun with something more ambiguous like “my partner” or even worse change their sex altogether!
What is appropriate? Chances are if you work in a gay bar, hairdressers or another area that extremely gay friendly you don’t even have to think about it. But what if you work in a a shop, office or in manual labour?
It’s time to put yourself in their shoes. Think about how your relationship with someone would change if you were more open with them, but consider just how open you should be. A work mate may like to hear about how you went out to a party or club at the weekend, but not really the details of who or how many people you picked up! They may be delighted to hear you have a long term partner and how you had a quite pleasant weekend relaxing and shopping as this will give them something to relate to and enable them to indulge in a little small talk during work breaks. There is nothing worse than having to sit in awkward silence with people you have to spend 8 hours a day with.
One trick I have learned is to be honest and assume that they already know. If they ask about your weekend, tell them, without divulging too much detail; if you mention your partner, use their name rather than he/she/we. This simple act of naming a partner or friend suddenly makes them more real, rather than just some object that “dare not speak it’s name“. The second part of the trick is to assume they already know. This really is a killer tactic. Just by simply thinking “I don’t have to explain, as they already know” the pressure is completely taken off you and placed fairly and squarely on them. You’ll see their thought process often displayed on their face as if they have one of those LED banners scrolling across their forehead. Some of the messages you may read are:-
“Ooh, he’s Gay, oooooooh my god, he’s GAY, quick act cool, clearly I’m supposed to know, or at least he thinks I do, OMG he’s GAY, act cool, act COOL!”
“Bless, he’s gay, I thought he was, glad we have got that out of the way”
“…is he gay? He never said he was but he keeps mentioning some guys name all the time like that’s his partner… oh man I’m confused, I’ll just keep talking, maybe it will come out in conversation, he he he “come out” he he he, oh I lost track, what was he saying?”
“I knew he was gay, Barbara owes me a drink”
Whatever happens, you’ll have a pretty good idea if they want to continue the conversation or they have had enough. Either way just how much you reveal is always up to you. By reading the facial expressions/messages you can judge for yourself what would be appropriate.
Part Four: Learning from your Mistakes
02 years ago
by Paul Bailey
in Blog
This is part four of a 4 part mini-course on how to build your self confidence. To make sure you recieve any future posts as they are published use the subscribe box on the left to have them sent directly to your inbox.
So, you feel good, you’re acting the part of the confident individual and you look good, too. Now it’s time to make sure that these feelings of positivity don’t disintegrate the minute something goes wrong.
In order to really reap the benefits of increased confidence and self-worth, you have to accept that everything doesn’t go according to plan all of the time. This has no bearing on you as an individual; it’s just a simple fact of life. We all make mistakes: it’s how we deal with them that counts. You need to try and turn a negative situation into a positive outcome and use the experience wisely in order to learn more about yourself and other people.
It can sometimes take a lot of courage to own up and admit to making a mistake, especially if it’s one that has had financial or personal implications for other people, or the company you work for. By admitting to the mistake as soon as possible, you’re demonstrating real confidence as an individual. The courage and humility required to do this will only serve to enhance your reputation in the eyes of others and it will also help you to gain closure on the event and move forward. Dwelling on the mistakes you make is a fruitless exercise and is simply time wasted that could have been put to better use.
Once you realise that you’ve made a mistake, the important thing is to try and rectify the situation as quickly as possible. Then, instead of thinking about how it could have been avoided if you’d done ‘this’ or ‘that’, think about how you can learn from the mistake and ensure that it doesn’t happen again. If the mistake occurred because you were tired, or because you were becoming too blasé about a certain aspect of your job, then you need to look at these issues and decide on a plan of action to take away the reason for the mistake occurring.
The key is to evaluate certain aspects of your life in order to ensure that you don’t keep on making the same mistakes. It’s the person who fails to learn from their mistakes that will keep making them and, if you keep making the same mistakes, then your confidence will naturally decrease until you get to the stage whereby your peers and colleagues might begin to lose faith in your abilities. It can turn into a perpetual cycle and can have a detrimental effect on all areas of your life.
If, on the other hand you learn form the mistakes you make, you will discover areas of your life that you can improve. You have then succeeded in turning the negative situation surrounding the mistake into a positive outcome. This can only be a good thing when it comes to boosting your confidence and taking charge of your life and the path you’re going to take.
Part Three: Dress to Impress
02 years ago
by Paul Bailey
in Blog
This is part three of a 4 part mini-course on how to build your self confidence. To make sure you recieve each part as it’s published use the subscribe box on the left to have them sent directly to your inbox.
Now that you’ve had a chance to think about self-belief and body language, it’s time to take a look at your wardrobe. Although dress sense is very much a personal thing, the clothes you wear can say a lot about your personality. If you look good, you’re more likely to feel good and you will naturally exude more confidence.
Dressing to impress doesn’t necessarily mean breaking the bank with shopping sprees to expensive boutiques and designer shops. As the very appropriate proverb goes, “cut your coat according to your cloth”. In other words, shop according to your budget. Having said that, some items of clothing are worth investing more money in and, depending on your line of work, you may wish to splash out a bit more for key pieces that will boost your confidence. For example, a tailored suit can be a fantastic investment. Whilst you might be lucky and find an off-the-peg suit that just happens to flatter your particular frame and figure, a tailor-made suit will give you that extra confidence boost when you really need it.
The art to dressing with confidence is to find styles and colours that really suit you. If pea green is your favourite colour but you look like a bowl of soup when you wear it, then stop adding it to your wardrobe. Whilst no one wants to hide their personality away under bland clothing, there’s a lot to be said for dressing for the occasion and a few classic items in your wardrobe will ensure that you have outfits at your fingertips whenever you need to look the part. An ill-fitting or inappropriate item of clothing will distract you and will also draw other’s people’s attention to areas of your body that might not be entirely confident with. If you spend a meeting or a first date tugging at a shirt that’s just a little bit too tight around the midriff, your confidence levels will plummet and you won’t be showing yourself off at your optimum.
If you’re turning over a new leaf and ditching the contents of your wardrobe to start from scratch then take a friend with you when you go shopping. It’s often a good idea to get a second opinion – just make sure it’s an honest opinion. Whilst shop assistants can be very helpful, they’re often busy and it’s in their best interests for you to buy the clothes. A friend can also dash about to find different sizes and they’ll probably pick out things that you’d never have considered trying if you were shopping alone. This can be a great way to broaden your clothing horizons and discover new styles.
If you can give yourself a confidence boost by dressing in clothes that suit your body shape and personality but are also comfortable and stylish, then you’ll be off to a good start every day and this should have a positive impact on your work and other areas of your life.
Don’t miss part four: Learning from your mistakes
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Part Two: Body Language
02 years ago
by Paul Bailey
in Blog
This is part two of a 4 part mini-course on how to build your self confidence. To make sure you recieve each part as it’s published use the subscribe box on the left to have them sent directly to your inbox.
Have you ever wondered why some people can enter a room and command a sense of power? They might not have spoken a word but their presence is sufficient to make everyone else sit up and pay attention. These individuals aren’t necessarily tall, muscular or beautiful but they almost certainly have the knack of executing the art of positive body language.
Whether you’re aware of it or not, you use body language on a daily basis to convey your feelings to other people. By learning to use your body language to your benefit, you can enhance your self-confidence and the confidence that others have in you. Body language can help you to achieve success in your career, your business dealings and in your personal life. By understanding body language, you can also gauge other people’s perceptions of you and of the situations they find themselves in: in other words, you can read people.
Although body language is a science in itself and people have spent years studying and trying to unravel the exact nuances of non-verbal communication, there are definitely some key points to look out for when you’re presenting yourself to other people. In obvious situations like conducting a meeting, confronting a partner, or going for a job interview, the need for affirmative and self-confident body language is imperative. However, as people get to know each other better then the more subtle aspects of their body language can help to reveal even more about their personalities.
Your eyes can say a lot about you and, in terms of coming across well to other people, direct eye contact is a safe bet. This is universally regarded as a sign that someone is being attentive and is interested in what the other person has to say. By looking someone straight in the eye you are giving the signal that you’re being honest. Your arms are another giveaway when it comes to body language and this might be something you’re not even conscious of when you’re talking to others. By gaining some knowledge about the outward signs that your body uses to convey your emotions, you can then take positive steps to address these and try to portray yourself in a more confident and accessible manner. Crossed arms are a sign of defensiveness and this physical barrier that you are putting between your body and the person you are talking to can be detrimental in many situations. In contrast, holding your arms behind your back is a sign of confidence. So, next time you feel your arms itching to cross themselves, push them behind your back instead and watch your confidence levels soar.
The handshake is another body language sign that is open to much interpretation. As it’s frequently used in situations that might have a bearing on your professional or personal life, make sure you get it right with a firm handshake that exudes confidence. Shake someone’s hand with your palm facing upwards and you’re submitting to their authority; palm down and you’re trying to dominate. If you use both hands, then you might give the impression that you’re a domineering character, so don’t go over the top.
Next: Part Three: Dress to Impress
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