Carolyn Mahboubi Carolyn Mahboubi

To Begin is To Win

I’m obsessed with beginnings. Beginnings carry what I think of as “Pilgrim Energy”! I’m talking about that effortless stream of vital energy we experience at the dawn of a desire. Think of the beginnings of falling in love, starting a business, or committing to a big mission.

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Carolyn Mahboubi Carolyn Mahboubi

Coaching is… NOT a Hobby

Coaching is… NOT a hobby. It is a profession (and a sacred one at that). Casually using the title of "Coach" alongside another profession (so fashionable these days on every social platform!) is not the way to becoming a Professional Coach and certification alone doesn’t turn you into one.

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Carolyn Mahboubi Carolyn Mahboubi

Seize the Season

Spring is the season of possibility and potential, a time to plant intentional seeds for the future harvest. Let your mixed emotions guide you towards purposeful choices and thoughtful commitments.

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Carolyn Mahboubi Carolyn Mahboubi

Coaching Vs. Therapy: The Long Answer

Coaching and Therapy share a powerful mission—to make people feel and do better. But they're not the same. Therapy delves into the roots of our behaviors. Coaching propels us toward tangible progress. While Therapy helps us move from dysfunctional to functional, Coaching takes over as a high-performance engine to bring us to optimal. Many people work with both. Here are 6 insights about the real difference—and why it might matter less than you think.

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Carolyn Mahboubi Carolyn Mahboubi

What Are You Leaving Behind?

Quite accidentally, yesterday morning I found a written reflection of mine from many years ago in response to the following question: Where have I left? And where am I arriving?

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Carolyn Mahboubi Carolyn Mahboubi

The Mindset Reset: 11 Powerful Practices

When new changes arise and abundance blooms, your upper limit hits the ceiling. You sabotage yourself and drop back into the old familiar zone where you feel secure. This is the inner thermostat setting that determines how much love, success, and creativity you allow yourself. But once you have awareness of this dynamic, you can reset it. Here are the 11 powerful practices for re-calibrating and centering your focus.

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Carolyn Mahboubi Carolyn Mahboubi

Redefining Seriousness! The ‘Succession’ Effect

Recently, I wrote a blog about tradeoffs. I expected it to be a sleeper blog—one I found deeply important but not likely to generate much excitement. To my surprise, it struck a nerve with many readers and listeners. The most common response? People wanted to know if I could share more ways to become a true “Master of Tradeoffs.”

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Carolyn Mahboubi Carolyn Mahboubi

Ageless Advisors: 80-Somethings Share Their Secrets

Last week, as I passed a park bench, I noticed four women who were clearly in their eighties, huddled together, chatting, laughing and genuinely having a great time. Here is an abbreviated list of my thoughts as I passed them each time.

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Carolyn Mahboubi Carolyn Mahboubi

Niche Rhymes with Quiche

"What's your niche?" is a question I'm asked often. My short and often unsatisfying response is, "My niche is humans." Most coaching schools teach you to build your business by deciding on a niche and marketing it aggressively. But if this system works, why is the average global Professional Life Coach salary only $47,000? I propose we base our choice of which Life Coach to work with less on their marketing niche and more on their behavioral one.

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Carolyn Mahboubi Carolyn Mahboubi

The 3 Steps to Creating Money

In my work, limiting beliefs around money are some of the hardest to unearth and transform. Most of us are still carrying around our great grandparents’ beliefs about money and allowing them to decide our present day to day actions.

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Carolyn Mahboubi Carolyn Mahboubi

How Can You Speed Up by Slowing Down?

So many of us believe that if we slow down our thinking, we will come to a dead stop or fall off the cliff or maybe we’ll just lie on the couch all day and lose the thread of our lives forever, intoxicated by Netflix and chips! I’m here to tell you the contrary.

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Carolyn Mahboubi Carolyn Mahboubi

The Morning Practice

A Morning Practice is the most life-changing tool in your operating system. Like a sturdy foundation supporting a tall building or deep roots anchoring an oak tree, how you spend your mornings determines how you spend your days—and ultimately, your life. When you understand that you have a high degree of control over how your day unfolds through a consistent morning practice, you stop seeing it as a chore and start seeing it as a powerful tool for clarity, focus, and productivity.

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Carolyn Mahboubi Carolyn Mahboubi

Your Future is a Result, Not a Mystery

Imagine yourself on the morning of January 1st 2023. You’re holding a cup of your morning potion of choice as you sit or stand in your favorite spot. Reflecting on the last 4 months of your life, you are overcome with thoughts and feelings of deep gratitude and pride.

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Carolyn Mahboubi Carolyn Mahboubi

Nine Superpowers of a Great Coach

I’m often asked to explain what makes for a “great” Life Coach, as well as the reverse. So here's my list of 9 things a great coach can help her clients with and 7 things she/he can leave to other professions.

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Carolyn Mahboubi Carolyn Mahboubi

Why Comparison is the Enemy of Creativity

It’s humbling to know and publicly admit that I’ve never had an original idea, including the one I’m going to share today. It’s also liberating beyond measure. Most of us are raised to believe that unless we create something original, our offer is not valuable, or even worse, that we are plagiarizing! When wanting to start a new business, writing a book, or embarking on a new adventure, how many times have we heard…

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Carolyn Mahboubi Carolyn Mahboubi

The Antidote to Anger

I used to be really angry. I thought it was my personality because, well, I come from a long line of angry people. I can feel them getting angry as they read these words. But I soothe myself with the belief that most members of my beloved family don’t actually read much of what I write. And now I’m getting a little angry!

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Carolyn Mahboubi Carolyn Mahboubi

The Positivity Trap

Trying to be relentlessly positive is exhausting and often useless. I work with ambitious, deep-thinking people who spent a lifetime 'being positive' and it hasn't brought them closer to clarity or purposeful action. It's shaped them into nice, agreeable members of society, but left them asking, 'Is this all there is?' When gratitude becomes a weapon and reframing becomes a prison, it's time to shift from positivity to possibility.

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