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The monthly e mail newsletter for business professionals who want growth from Energise Brand Communications Ltd and Rachel Brushfield.

The purpose of this newsletter is to share simple tips and tools to make your life and work easier and help you to market yourself and your business as a unique brand.

This month's theme is about... Insight mining.

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I am absolutely passionate about insights. They are such wonderful things that have magic in them, both insights about problems, challenges or situations and self-insights, things that aid self-awareness and personal growth.

My work has always been in the area of digging for insights. As an account planner working in advertising, I would analyse data and information and look at trends to uncover those things about consumers, markets or brands that held a spark that would create differentiation and profit.

As a coach, I help my clients uncover new insights about themselves that help them create awareness about themselves; what makes them great; what holds them back so that they can find ways themselves to move forward. Taking a client out of their normal approach or context helps insights to emerge.

The line I put on my business card 'Insight and clarity for growth' sums it up the best that I can - this is the market I work in.

In this newsletter:

• What is an insight?
• Examples of insights
• Top 10 tips to help insights emerge

What is an insight?

So what exactly is an insight? Where does it come from and what happens to the brain when it pops out?

Here's a few definitions of an insight: 'a clear, deep and sudden understanding of a complicated problem or situation'; 'the capacity for understanding hidden truths'; 'perceiving in an intuitive manner'; 'power of acute observation and deduction', 'penetrating discernment'

What would your definition of an insight be?

These definitions appear to suggest that insights are not just about logical analysis, they can be formed with sixth sense or an intuitive leap. Whatever your preferred definition, what is evident is that they come about with time to think and reflect and are easier if fed with an incisive question and given time and space to cook.

Before insights, we often have a period of feeling quite stuck and frustrated with the accompanying negative emotion, which is why insights feel so good!

An insight feels like a sudden shift from pre-solution to solution and has positive energy in it, and is something that unlocks the door and acts as fuel for sustained change.

Research into the brain shows that just before people solved puzzles with insight, their brains gave off alpha waves, which correlate with the mind being quiet. To see a situation in a new light, we need to stop thinking about it in the same way.

When we have an insight, we get a rush of energy and feel positive, the result of new mental connections being created and neurotransmitters like adrenaline and dopamine being released. At the moment of insight creation, the brain gives off gamma-band waves, which indicate a super-map linking many parts of the brain in new ways being created.

Examples of insights

I love insights because they are so useful and feel magical. Simple insights can help people to change habits that have been frustrating them, manage themselves better and market themselves to get what they want.

There are many examples of insights, so here I wanted to share some of the ones that resonate for me:

• A client realising that they no longer wanted to have 'responsibility' as a value any more, freeing them up for more fun
• Me realising that the things I need and want to change are hat most other people find second-nature and easy
• Clients realising that they have choice and don't have to do anything other people think they should do
• A client realising that the key to not creating piles of paper was to change the order they did things after they came through their front door
• Me lining up 4 glasses of water would mean remembering to drink 2L of water a day, rather than forgetting, keeping my body happier
• A Client realising that delegating 2 simple tasks each day would save 4 hours a day and create the time for the important things that they hadn't had time to do

Top 10 tips to help insights emerge

Here’s some tips to help insights emerge.

1. Believe that you are creative and can come up with insights
2. Summarise your challenge into an incisive open question
3. Create a relaxed space to allow your mind to roam or go outdoors
4. Keep a notepad handy for when your insights emerge
5. Talk to different people about the thing you want insights about - sharing can help insights form
6. Think about the thing about which you want an insight, i.e. brief your mind and then do something completely different
7. Get a coach who can help you see different perspectives, increasing the likelihood of having different/fresh insights
8. Let go of perfection - an insight isn't right or wrong, good or bad, it just is
9. Learn to coach yourself about things that you want to change
10. Think about people who you perceive to be insightful and mirror what they do; e.g. spend time reflecting; read a lot; have a curious attitude to life etc

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell is a very interesting book about insights.

If you have any insights about insights, we'd love to hear them! Also, we'd love to help you do some insight mining, let us know if you're up for it. Look forward to hearing from you.

Cheers

Rachel

Rachel Brushfield
Director, coach and marketing mentor
Energise – Insight & Clarity for Growth

Previous newsletter topics include: addiction to busyness; personal springclean; motivation; giving appreciation; empathy; giving feedback; coaching style of management; purpose-full living; the danger of making assumptions; follow up; making BIG decisions; managing yourself; being specific; rewarding relationships; career crossroads; 2005 stock take; becoming unstuck; self-promotion; safe risk; optimism; more health, wealth and happiness; how to handle 'difficult' people; maximising your potential; how to stop wasting and save time; how to do absolutely nothing; listening; career choice and change; stress; focus for results; procrastination; reflection; fear; rapport; productivity; self-branding; beliefs; time management and S.M.A.R.T. goals.

If you’d like to receive a back copy of any of these, please e mail us to mail@energisingconnector.co.uk putting the Energise Tips & Tools newsletter of interest in the subject box.

Contact

Rachel Brushfield
Energise Brand Communications Ltd.
t +44 (0) 845 22 55 010
m +44 (0) 7973 911137
mail@energisingconnector.co.uk
www.energisingconnector.co.uk/
Based in London and Oxfordshire

Helping business professionals make leap ups.

Energise - Insight & Clarity for Growth

Our services are:
C areer coaching, CV design & personalised outplacement
A ction learning sets
M arketing & brand mentoring
E xecutive coaching
L ife coaching

More tips and tools

Our web site has a ‘Tips and tools’ section, which is regularly updated, sharing free tips and tools to help make life easy. Why not check it out? Visit www.energisingconnector.co.uk and click on the Tips & Tools button

Why Energise?

There are lots of coaching companies, so why choose us? Here’s some facts about Energise:

WHY:

We feel strongly about helping people to help themselves and are passionate about addressing low self-esteem & lack of self-belief in society that so often acts as a brake to people maximising their potential. Often people don’t recognise their own talents and potential, so with our background in marketing and brand communications, we help our clients to market themselves as a unique brand so they maximise their potential

HOW:

We personalise our service to the individual and get to the heart of the matter fast, so are time and cost effective. We are down to earth, focused and focusing, practical, human and energising. Unlike many coaching companies, we do not insist on a contract, so coaching is flexible from as little as 1 hour a month.

WHO:

We work with: big companies including Diageo, Sony Ericsson, Cranfield University, AWAS and Clifford Chance, small businesses and many individuals. We also do pro-bono work for selected charities e.g. working with disaffected young people and prisoners.

WHERE:

Based in London and Oxfordshire

WHEN:

Energise was set up in 1997 so we have an established track record of 10 years plus 10 years full time experience before that. We coach our clients from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday – Friday. We work with people at a crossroads/point of transition in their lives and jobs, helping them to define their goals and realise and maximise their potential.

WHAT:

Our services are:
C areer coaching, CV design & personalised outplacement
Action learning sets and bespoke workshops
M arketing & brand mentoring
E xecutive coaching
L ife coaching

Memberships

Energise have professional memberships with:
The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM)
The International Coaching Federation (ICF)
The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD)
Business Network International (BNI).

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