Step Grandmothers?

Well it seems there is quite a furore surrounding the announcement of Camilla being Grandmother to Princess Charlotte, but of course she is. Children need parents and grandparents in their lives, people to love them, protect them and be there for them. It's the adults around that have their own agenda and in turn spoil the innocence of family relationships and prevent bonding within extended families..

As a life coach, dealing with family unrest or disputes is a frequent occurrence, it can be difficult to move on in life when others tell you it is wrong, and step families are high on the list. Second families are now common place, yet despite the acceptance of divorce, re-marriage, step children and step siblings, there is still a stigma attached to the step parent. Often excluded from social gatherings, and outcast by family members, so how does this negativity occur?

Well in years gone by family dynamics changed as a result of war, shorter life expectancy and incurable illness, the changes in the modern world mean that relationships often come to an ultimate conclusion naturally rather than forcibly. As a society we search for blame yet we should search for resolve.  Loyalty can be damaging when misplaced. When a widow or widower remarries there is support for the continuation of their life with company, yet a divorcee will not receive the same support regardless of the same emotional need. The children in the battlefield are more interested in being loved and appreciated and building relationships.  If this were not the case then I would not see clients with this dilemma and programmes such as 'Surprise Surprise' would not exist.

It's much easier to give advice when on the outside looking in, or when driven by more outspoken or confident family members. As the dust settles so does the cold light of day, do you honest want to exclude people from your life because someone else thinks you should.  Everyone has their reasons for the make or break of a relationship, years are wasted being a casualty too.

So what should Camilla do? Take a back seat, deny Princess Charlotte the pleasure of time with her Step Grandmother, one whose Father has taken on as his Father's wife.  Looking back solves nothing but looking forward and embracing change can enrich and fulfill your life. Nobody really knows the complexity of family and life when watching through a press presented window. Who honestly knows the complexity of our lives when watching from outside.

For others outside of the royal family, with your own family difficulties, why? what has created the barrier from you? not by someone else, what limiting belief holds you from moving on with the people you love?

There are second wives and husbands everywhere wondering why. There are parents and grandparents wondering the same.

Is tomorrow your new day?

For a free initial coaching consultation contact us at aicoachingsolutions@aol.co.uk

The Coaching Guru: Driving School Growth

The Coaching Guru: Driving School Growth: Over the last few months, as the recession has lifted driving schools have moved from strength to strength, with many expanding their ...

Driving School Growth

Over the last few months, as the recession has lifted driving schools have moved from strength to strength, with many expanding their business and taking on new instructors, or moving into the automatic market.

The years 2008 to 2013 were predicted to be low income years for ADI's with 2014 to 2017 showing a predicted growth pattern, which includes more young learners, who only account for 65% of the trend, more foreign licence holders taking a test after one year in the UK, refresher lessons amongst the older driver sector has increased since the DVSA called in more drivers who are on specific medication, have a particular disability or illness or have been referred by the Police.

Typically in the period of recession instructors find themselves seeking alternative employment or joining a franchise, but when the economy is slow there is no magic cure. The current figures for provisional licence holders across the 15 to 20 age group is 587,212, with less than half of these taking lessons. 21 to 25 year old's hold 557,975 provisional licences, taking the younger age groups over the one million bracket. It is estimated that one third of green badge holders have no learners, are retired, work abroad or in the corporate market. So generally speaking the recession at it's worse was harsher than many anticipated.

With the current boon expected to carry us into the next couple of years the anticipated entry into the register will see a rise, as figures have been low for sometime this can only help not hinder economic growth.  With a general election in just a couple of months, the future of the driving instruction industry as we know it has the potential for all change depending on who comes into power.

The growth of learners has been seen across France, Sweden, Belgium, Spain and Germany, where learning to drive is far more expensive than the UK. In previous years it was known for other EU residents to take a driving test in the UK then take it back to their country to exchange, there is no reason for this not to continue.

The next down turn is estimated to be 2019.

Can driving schools with rapid growth sustain their income stream, in the current climate it is viable, but it is also hard work.  The last twenty years of study show that a small school which expands is likely to lose their instructors to sole trading once they feel comfortable in the structure of business, for some it can be a headache they wish they had avoided.

Manipulating the market is doable by all sole traders, without the need for cut price lessons, team work is vital in dual car schools and cooperatives tend to fare better than the old fashioned systems. Making sure you cover your costs is essential, being a nice person is great but not when you are up at night worrying about your instructors, filling their diaries and remaining friends. Upholding reputation is key for growth to continue.

For coaching guru tips on business structure and growth, visit our free information pages.

The Coaching Guru: Crazy Coaching

The Coaching Guru: Crazy Coaching: In all aspects of coaching there us a fine line, whether it be business, life, executive or driver, this line is identified as how does a ba...

Crazy Coaching

In all aspects of coaching there us a fine line, whether it be business, life, executive or driver, this line is identified as how does a baseline come about, can it be a real result of coaching experience or an identifiable point where coaching is seen as a starting point.  I know I am writing from a coach perspective but I have hours of time spent in real scenarios, and I have found there to be so many who elevate themselves into the role of coaching without qualification but based on popularity through social media promotion.

So do we trust a coach based on their reputation, through their self promotion or experience, is it possible to rely on the word of someone who is well promoted through input or design or is it through personal experience?

The very essence of coaching is personal experience, a goal and the search for answers and results, when looking at driver training what is the requirement, well it seems those who shout loudest get the most results, yet seriously it should be what is coaching, why do I want it how can it help me in my life or career.

Of course as a coach, we take the ultimate outcome very seriously, and from our portfolio, be it driver trainers, business owners or those from other walks of life or genre, the future is a goal, personal want or desire is a need, thinking loosely in terms of driver training as an example it becomes what the overseeing body or trainee wants how many coaches ask why?

An amazing powerpoint presentation, or popularity is not the way forward only an achievable outcome, goal or vision is the route to seeing positivity and success.  A case study that is not in our book has been provided, the names of those featured have been changed to protect their identity despite their permission t use the details.


Sandy and Leon have been dating for a year, they trust each other and often travel together after a night out, Leon rarely drives but tonight he has decided to take the car, he has not been drinking but has worked a ten hour shift, they have had a meal, and Sandy has had a few alcoholic drinks, on the way home they have a heated discussion although neither describe it as a row, and are reluctant to describe the details as personal argument.  Leon is driving within a forty limit and is travelling between 45 and 64mph he loses control of the vehicle, leaves the road and the car ends its journey in a field on the roof, no other vehicle is involved.  Leon describes the crash as an accident he says he swerved to avoid a deer, where Sandy says his driving become erratic and on a bend resulted in Leon trying to steer too late.  This scenario is highly likely as most rural collisions are single vehicle at night, transfer of responsibility is also a common factor, so how as a coach would you respond to this?

Hormones and the Driver

Having read many articles regarding the teenage driver, the older driver, the complacent driver, I decided it was time to release the research carried out by our business, this involved a survey of female driving instructors, female drivers and female learners. the results are quite stunning.

There s a huge amount of emphasis on attitude and driver behaviour, and hormone levels in young males has been touched upon but not thoroughly explored, interestingly those who believe that attitude is behind accident rates amongst young drivers have not explored the medical evidence but accepted the argument put forward by others. It is easy to believe that medical evidence and nature plays no part with the majority being swept up on the nature aspect. Of course we all take on habitual behaviour from our peers but we also develop our own personal traits, so why would we copy risky or dangerous behaviour, as a risk taker does not inspire confidence it inspires fear.  The research we have carried out spans five years and the evidence is both qualitative and quantitative.

In 2009 we surveyed 100 female driver trainers, in 2012 we surveyed a further 100 female driver trainers, both groups were selected because of their diversity of clients, we also asked them to survey their female clients.  The female group results were interesting, those who were pre-menopausal, as in menstruating regularly reported regular dips in their driving ability, feeling more irritable with other drivers and less tolerant with their clients, those who were post menopause still reported days of reduced driving ability but not of the regularity of the pre-menopause group.

Increased hormonal surges resulted in irritability, poor concentration and driver errors, although this is to be expected as it is a fact that hormone surges affect female behaviour, it is acknowledged that our research was more indepth than any other entered into for research purposes. Menopausal 'brain fogginess' is recognised, but in the teenager driver no consideration is taken into account for menstruation cycles, with the majority of driving instructors being male the learner drivers surveyed found it difficult to convey to their instructor their change in personal feelings and the fact that they were feeling different, some did not relate their change in driver behaviour to their cycle until our survey when they were encouraged to take part in our testing and studies.

Of 100 female learner drivers questioned in 2009 with 79 being of pre menopausal age or state, once asked to keep a record of their learner behaviour reported 'bad lessons' the week before their period, with the remaining 21 reporting discomfort or lack of attention or understanding of the lesson material. All female learner drivers who took part in our 2009 survey admitted to having 'good lessons' the week following their period, where they felt calmer and more able to retain information.  The majority said that they had not linked the relationship of menstrual cycle and learning, once identified these students booked their lessons in relation to their cycle and found themselves in a better frame of mind for learning and made an active decision to book a driving test for the week following their cycle, those who had a male instructor chose not to relay their reasons for choosing when they could take a test.

In 2012 the survey results showed a similar vein of pattern, however in 2012 the majority of those questioned did have female instructors yet still chose not to tell their instructor their reason for preferring a particular test day, for our research purposes this confirmed an amount of embarrassment linked to natural occurrences in the body and the student teacher environment.

We moved our survey on to male students, testosterone is harder to pin point as there is no identifiable cycle pattern, so we used specific questioning related to mood, sleeping patterns and social environment.  We found that those who discussed their driving with friends who already could drive felt empowered to be better, the hormone surges experienced were high at this point, many experts in this field believe the pattern relates to hunter forager days, where it was survival of the fittest, however our extensive research into the warrior gene resulted in conclusive evidence that a young male driver can display risky behaviour even if they were raised in a risk free environment, where their parents or those with parental responsibility were displaying a calm attitude to driving and a relaxed attitude to poor road behaviour as opposed to aggressive reasoning.

Five years of intensive study has demonstrated to us that risky behaviour is nature as opposed to nurture, although copying the respected family members is evident, this is minimal.  The move towards post test training to tackle risky behaviour would be a non starter as the only remedy would be as a result of genetic modification.  Adopted learners, and we only had ten of these take part in a nation wide survey, displayed behaviour based on how they felt rather than how they were led.  Research into testosterone based behaviour, surges in hormone levels is currently underway with results expected in 2017.

The conclusion of our research to date is those who are peri menopausal are forgetful and more likely to experience spikes in their learning process, those who are pre menopausal, which we consider to be 17 to 45, had learning experiences reflecting as good and bad based on where they were in their cycle, those who had this highlighted to them, which for study purposes was 50% of 2012 study, made a conscious effort to plan their learning around their cycle with 38% claiming that the three days pre-period were the worse.

If disproportionate accident rates amongst young drivers is to be addressed then the physical aspect has to be taken into consideration, several American studies identify testosterone amongst young males as being a significant factor yet this is largely ignored probably because it is believed it cannot be tackled, yet if these results were taken seriously the maybe road fatalities amongst this younger generation could be reduced.

Older drivers know their limitations, and experience has reduced their exposure, testosterone levels in older males reduces, hormone levels in females in the pre menopause group change with age and are also affected by pregnancy.

The final figures for this survey which will include 2014 survey figures amongst specific groups age 17 - 25 female 17 - 25 male and pregnant women, and full time working males will follow this be the end of 2014.

Wishing Sensibility

When I was in my teens I can't remember having much care beyond who was playing on the radio, and whether I could scrape together enough money to buy a record that was the moment of deep pleasure to play over and over again, potentially encouraging my parents to hand out the ear plugs to family and visitors.

I skipped through school, I can not really say I enjoyed it, but there was no pressure to conform, it was not without some difficulty, bullied a little but so wrapped up in my own world I'm not sure I cared, it certainly didn't encourage me to skip school.  I do remember the inward sigh when one particularly girl would see me and begin the following, close behind with plenty to say about how awful I was, but really this dented nothing about my confidence or personality.  I had my groups of friends, never being one to have that special friend to share my secrets, probably because I had none.  If I liked a boy I didn't giggle over his glances towards me or tell a friend, I told him directly.  Now it's hard to imagine I was so brazen.

A Mummy's girl until about fifteen when this inbuilt urge to pull against the apron strings spiraled me into a new era, one it seems we never quite recover from.  I think it can be loosely described as adulthood.  My extended family remember me as a shy little girl with ribbons and ringlets and pretty girly dresses.  I just remember these older children peering at me hiding behind my Mother's skirt and wondering why they were so interested.  Having to let go of her hand and play, in a strange house and a strange garden, yet really looking back I enjoyed the play time the interaction and still today see my cousins and remember fondly how essential they were in my formative years.

I'm not really on a trip into memory lane here, but am comparing how life for the teenager has changed.  Pressure in the classroom, from my experience compared to my now fifteen year old daughter I see exam stress, demands to reach a level or they will be doomed.  Nastiness in the play ground and tight nit groups of  girls and boys compared to the same sex groups that I was familiar with at school.

Why have we allowed our children to be pushed onto a treadmill when the rat race is still awaiting them as it did me, why is school such a negative experience, creating more depressed adolescents than ever before. Education is vital, I am still on education wheel even now, but when do they have time to be children, why is there so much eagerness to enforce pressure into what can only be described as the most confusing dance of life that they will ever face, with emotions and hormones and social experiments dictating how they feel.

As a life coach, although my area of expertise if you like, is bereavement, when you look at depression, sadness, confusion it is so closely connected what can we do to jump off of the conveyor belt and think for a moment.  Money, gifts, holidays, trips, are nothing compared to time, we can't stop the hands of the clock from turning, but if you close your eyes for a moment what are the memories that you hold dear, do your children have these memories too.

The increase in drinking and recreational drug use amongst our young people identifies an element of boredom and a lack of attention, can it be changed for the future generations?


Taken from the book 'Dancing Through Time'  publication date August  2014

copyright 2014