About Cool Calm & Connected

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Cool, Calm & Connected is a coaching and training business based in northern New South Wales, Australia. It provides personal programs and group workshops to professionals who want to grow themselves and their business, by learning how to speak and present in public with ease and authenticity. Services are delivered face to face, via phone, Skype / video, corporate training, workshops, retreats and online.

"Cool Calm & Connected" means having the self awareness, self confidence and self assurance to reconnect deeply with who you are and the people around you.

Cool, Calm & Connected is run by self appointed Chief Speaking Officer, Geraldine Barkworth.

Geraldine Barkworth’s Speaking Background

The other day I suddenly realised, that I would do this work – helping people overcome speaking fears to grow and expand beyond their wildest dreams – even if I didn’t get paid for it. I was amazed to discover this life purpose had been under my nose for years. Since childhood, I have always been offered the role of spokesperson, MC or speaker.

My knowledge of how to confidently speak and present comes from:
•    Hands on experience as a group presenter and facilitator.
•    Attending standard public speaking courses and realising the standard approach did not work for me – so I developed my own, natural style, which attracts other “non-standard” seekers.
•    Advanced communication skills gained from training and working as a professional life coach.
•    Years of working with clients throughout Australia and New Zealand has helped me create coaching  programs, workshops and retreats which offer a unique blend of:

    personal and professional development,
    advanced interpersonal communication skills,
    public speaking confidence, whether to 1 or 1,000,
    teaching professionals how to work with groups and turn their untapped resources into rewarding and income expanding speaking, workshops and presentations.

Professional Background

Geraldine Barkworth began her working life in libraries and was repeatedly told she was "too noisy" - by clients, not staff. She worked in a variety of information management roles in Sydney, while completing a 2 year diploma of Bodywork. Soon after, Geraldine shifted sideways to sales and marketing for a large international subscription agency. After lots of travel and autonomy, she moved sideways again to manage the Canberra office of a specialist recruitment agency for three years. Geraldine moved to northern New South Wales for love and was hired by a government department to assist people with injuries and disabilities return to work. Still looking for the meaning of life after those six lateral career moves, Geraldine retrained as a professional career and life coach and set up business in 2002, specialising in work / life balance for overstretched professionals.

Geraldine undertook coach training with Results Coaching Systems and continues to work with coaches from different training schools, gaining experience with different methodologies. She edited the Australasia International Coach Federation's newsletter for a couple of years. She is particularly interested in the work of Lee Glickstein (Speaking Circles USA), Sir John Whitmore (Leadership and Organisational Change, UK), Marlena Field, (Body Centred Coaching, Canada).

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“ Geraldine has professionality with personality. ”
Lynda Robynne Booth, Metamorphosis

 

Personal Background

Running my own business is the best thing I've ever done; and the most challenging thing I've ever done. It's the best thing because I'm freed from the tyranny of being told what to do. And it's the most challenging, because there is no one to tell me what to do.

After five years of delivering career and life coaching over the phone, I realised that clients were really coming to me to learn how to reconnect to their authentic voice and to speak and live from that place. So I created a series of unique programs that blend inner and outer work.

I live on the far north coast of New South Wales, Australia (near Byron Bay) and I work from home. My time is divided between personal coaching over the telephone and travelling around Australia and New Zealand to deliver workshops.

  • I enjoy watching movies with my husband - though I usually forget them immediately after.
  • I attend one silent meditation retreat a year (that's enough) and enjoy the lack of words.
  • I love speculative and science fiction - I need regular injections to remind me that our world is not always what it seems - always fancied writing an SF novel about a meditating librarian with a disability…do you think there is a market????!!!
  • I make "Jewellery to Strut In" (well, I like to strut in it) - a combination of pearl, crystal, semi precious and antique beads. My brain finally switches off and I become immersed in the evocative colours and shapes...
  • I am interested in promoting anti-noise pollution, improving hospital food, encouraging the use of companion animals, increasing acceptance of disability & teaching service professionals how to connect to make a world where less is spoken, but more is said.

If you'd like to hear about more of my ideas for work and play, browse my ezine archives, or find out How We Work or Who We Work With.


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