TED Community » Marie Wetmore

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Self development. Helping people have satisfying successful careers. Enjoying life. Nature. Meditation. Small business development. Economics. Women's empowerment in the workplace and at home.

An idea worth spreading

Simple: you can create a life that you love. It just takes vision, planning, and action. Human potential is stunning and we can achieve so much more than we might believe.

People don't know that I'm good at

Dancing, sailing, dog training.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +0.30 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A reply on Conversation: What is the first thing you tell yourself when you wake up to give yourself energy or courage?

  Nov 2 2011: Great. Look forward to hearing how it goes.

• A comment on Conversation: How do you feel about the responsibility of the government towards the young people (18-25) regarding the economic and financial crisis?

  Oct 31 2011: Bill, I hope I am interpreting your observation in the right way. Fundamentally, a coach facilitates change with individuals or organizations. Coaches are trained to ask questions and make observations that push clients to reflect on their habits and patterns, clarify their thoughts, come up with creative strategies, access resources, etc. Coaching is based on the premise that clients are already complete, creative, and capable of solving their own problems. A coach does not "fix" people or systems. Rather, coaching engages clients/organizations in a process that helps them clarify their own goals, leverage their strengths, identify barriers, and come up with strategies to achieve their objectives.
  
  Why not just give client solutions? If a client is really stuck and needs some ideas to help them get their juices flowing, I might occasionally take off my coaching hat and put on my consulting/teaching hat by directly give people knowledge or strategies, brainstorming together, etc. But usually, coming in and solving a problem undermines a person's ability to solve the problem for themselves, bypasses the energizing satisfaction that comes with overcoming a once insurmountable problem using one's own (or the group's) ingenuity, and can even be subtly disempowering by cutting people's opinions out of a process that affects them. Think about it, how many times have you seen the consultant come into an organization and give a good solution and then think to yourself, "I knew that. Why didn't someone just ask me? Listen to me?"
  
  I'm not knocking consultants - they do great work. I'm just saying there is often untapped knowledge and experience already present and the art is in accessing it. Sometimes just 5 minutes of thinking about the right question can trigger astounding ideas, ideas that they may never have materialized without someone pushing them to think deeper, or look at it from a different perspective.

• A reply on Conversation: How do you feel about the responsibility of the government towards the young people (18-25) regarding the economic and financial crisis?

  Oct 30 2011: Rowen, thanks for your thoughts. If you could ask for something and know that the older generations were listening and would do something (or help you do something), what would you ask for?

• A reply on Conversation: How do you feel about the responsibility of the government towards the young people (18-25) regarding the economic and financial crisis?

  Oct 30 2011: You ask a challenging question, which I need to think about further. But off the top of my head, maybe what we are doing right now is the right process: just talking to each other. I'd say that podcasting, blogging, youtube, etc offer other such opportunities for people to exchange ideas outside of traditional settings. For example, I imagine that my views of changing this system are different than a lot of other people. No problem there. The problem I see is when everyone is shouting and no-one is listening. I'm amazed how many times a simple conversation has made me change my views and I think this is common. I'd love to see a conversation between 99 percenters, corporate execs, and government officials in which they all had to end each statement with a question and listen without interrupting for at least 60 seconds.. I think we'd find that no-one is as bad as they appear from the other side.
  
  Other thoughts: I may be biased because I am a small business owner, but I also believe that entrepreneurship is exceptionally important here. Starting your own business allows you to create a corporate culture on your terms. Look at Zappos. We often get stuck fighting over pieces of the pie and forget about making a bigger pie. Don't get me wrong, entrepreneurship hard - I know from experience. But it can be done
  
  On a side note, I really love what the Khan institute is doing. Free education, wow. Imagine if we became a world where you could be educated for free, from anywhere. Game changer.

• A reply on Conversation: How do you feel about the responsibility of the government towards the young people (18-25) regarding the economic and financial crisis?

  Oct 30 2011: Craig, thank you for your reply. I guess I should clarify that I am 32...not so much older that the younger generation. Yes, there are major problems with our government. Absolutely agree. Surely people in power have created alot of this mess, and I especially think the government has been the major player in the problems. But I heard alot being said about that. What I am doing is adding a perspective that we as individuals can take action now to participate in educating and preparing the next generation. Is that provincial? Maybe it is, but I stand by the belief that individuals can make a huge impact by direct action and we don't always need to government to be the mechanism to do it.
  
  I Agree that conspicuous consumption is a problem. Conspicuous consumption is usually what happens when you are letting other people dictate your values and not living according to your own. Here's one of my values: tuning into strengths and capabilities of people and then teaching them strategies so they can succeed in life. The ideas I had, like them or not, are effective strategies for professional success. I targeted them because a common issue I see young people facing is how hard it is to find a jobs/succeed in the professional world. I am not advocating because it means making big bucks and filling a house with toys. I advocate them because a satisfying day's work and a paycheck that will help you provide a decent (non-conspicuous consumption life) for your family ...well why shouldn't someone have it? And why shouldn't we share the skills of how to get it?
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Do you think it's too much to expect to have success both career- and love life-wise?

  Oct 30 2011: Yes, totally possible. Actually, I would say that having a good love relationship could actually help you be a more successful professional. I'm not saying you have to have love to be successful. But if you have a partner and intentionally talk about how to build a relationship in which you support each other's goals, then you have a huge asset career-wise. Your love can be a source of wisdom, emotional support, practical support (sharing housework, sharing cooking so that healthy meals are available, talking out work struggles, etc). Your partner can help you relax. (Remember you think more effectively- ie your brain functions better- when you are less stressed) Also, having a partner at home can motivate you to work more effectively so that you leave on time. Usually the strategy of working longer hours is one of the most ineffective productivity strategies at work. But on the other hand, being more effective with your time, using your resources to get higher quality work done in less time, focusing on higher priority projects first, etc. are the strategies that make you more effective. What I mean is, having a reason to get home on time can inspire you to work smarter, not harder, and then leave on time to actually enjoy your life.

• A comment on Conversation: How do you feel about the responsibility of the government towards the young people (18-25) regarding the economic and financial crisis?

  Oct 30 2011: Great topic question since there are so many well thought out responses but here's a more important question: what should we as individuals do to help the younger generation? Some thoughts: start educating young people that you know about what will actually make them successful. Waiting for the government to "fix things" is a gamble with your time. But career skills, lessons from the experience of others, and entrepreneurship are real options that can be leveraged to create opportunities. We need to educate young people on general economics, organizational economics, business, and career development. Why? so they have a better understanding of how to be successful in the professional world. As a career coach,I say from experience that the most important thing for professional success is offering value (meaning strong professional relationship skills, ingenuity, and productivity). So, That's what we need to teach. Meaning, it's in our own hands to take advantage of educational opportunities in whatever way we can, even if it's studying out of library books. It's networking and building relationships. It's learning how to be effective with time, to be organized, to present yourself well, to identify areas of the market where your skills are needed, and if you don't have skills, to develop them. Or it's being an entrepreneur.I understand that some people are born into more advantage than others. It's true and it stinks to be born without advantage. But waiting for government to "fix" the problem (and really can they?) would result in waiting generations, at least. But taking ownership of our own lives and being strategic in how to be successful can create results now, or at least way faster and much more effectively, than waiting/hoping for government to do it for us.Lesson: we can ask to be given something. Or we can ask how to make it happen for ourselves.
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: What is the first thing you tell yourself when you wake up to give yourself energy or courage?

  Oct 30 2011: I tell myself what I have to grateful for, by way of a gratitude journal. This sounds like a fluffy practice but give it a try. 2 weeks of writing down what you are grateful for will make you aware of the great joys of life at a deep, experiential level. Then there's almost no choice to be energetic and courageous - it just happens!