G'DAY FROM DOWN UNDER

From Kathleen Zarubin
Lifetimes & Milestones
Brisbane, Australia

Just over two years ago, after ten years as the CEO of a major charity, I started a new business, Lifetimes & Milestones, based in Brisbane, Australia. I work with a number of Registered Training Authorities, and deliver seminars and workshops on issues related to the workplace. I also work one-on-one (on the phone and face-to-face), mainly with small business owners in a coaching role. My business is in that delightful crawling stage of babyhood, when everything is still new and exciting.

As a trainer, coach and a human being, I am constantly on the lookout for ways to inspire optimism and hope. Too often, the people I work with find life a struggle. I don’t want to offer them a Pollyanna worldview or the standard Australian line, “She’ll be right mate.”

In times of trauma, unrest, and confusion, a strategy for living can help a person out of the pit of hopelessness onto a firm foundation where she can regain her self-confidence and can begin to change her life and her world for the better.

My search for ways to instill hope is a reflection of my dependable strengths: curiosity and an open, analytical mind. Along the way, I have discovered two strategies that seem highly compatible: Appreciative Inquiry and the Dependable Strengths Articulation Process. I am a real novice with both those strategies, but I am excited by what I am learning from them.

I have been a very problem/solution-orientated person. I am good at looking at situations, identifying the issues, and preparing action plans to address them. But, I have often felt overwhelmed by the depth and breadth of the problems — mine and my client’s. And, I have found that the traditional approach often leads to, “Tried that. Didn’t work.” What I love most about the Dependable Strengths Process is that it begins from strong, happy, positive memories, and moves into an optimistic today and a hopeful tomorrow.

The opportunity for a client to share and receive feedback from a supportive group reinforces the optimism. For some of my clients the Dependable Strengths Process has provided the first positive feedback they have received in many years. I have also found that the ingrained language of self-deprecation is substantially reduced when people begin to realize the many dependable strengths they are able to identify and prove.

I have no formal training as a DS Facilitator. However, I have already found great benefits in just introducing the concept of dependable strengths articulation, and I am eager to learn more about the Dependable Strengths Process.