Coach Elliott

I have attempted to be as  spontaneous as possible around my BLOG even though I am not sure that there is any method to my madness to begin with, hence the "spontaneous" nature of it.  It is really not like I have a choice since it takes me about ten seconds to become distracted like I am now listening to the television that is turned on nearby in the living area.  I will be right back.  OK, I'm back now.  A momentary distraction has been attended to by the push of a remote.  Too bad issues of life cannot be that simple all the time.  As I have shared in the past this series of BLOGS will be focused on men and the manual that I have devised in my head, mainly because I am delusional and OCD (not really).  The fact is that I think I know something about women because I have been working, living, interacting and loving a lot of women all my life.  But this is not about me, this is about helping men understand some of the basic principles...

I am still working on how to entice men into reading my BLOG, hence the second title "Women and Men".  This is the start to the manual that I have the nerve to want to write in service to men and in gratitude to all the women in my life and those who have passed through my life.  Without boring all of you any further I will continue my quest to and continue to try my hand at this. My last BLOG started with the concept of the "first date".  I wanted to share some of the things that I women have shared with me about their first dates, some of which have been described as if they were a bad nightmare and others as "at most uneventful".  Surprisingly, if men would be willing to ask women more questions they would likely learn some things that would increase their chances of finding the woman they are dreaming about.  With that said I want to continue to talk about that first date because as many of us have experienced, if you screw that up it results in not ...

I guess I should start by explaining the title of this blog, not because I think it's complicated but because I would like others to know where this series of blogs will be focused.  I am in Naples Florida and just getting back from hanging out with my friend and her good friend by the ocean, having some drinks and watching the beautiful sunset.  Part of my conversation with my friends friend was about how men seem to be less than conscious about how to approach, be with and treat a woman.  I brought up the first date scenario to which she supported my idea of writing a manual for men.  This book would be entitled, "How to Be with Women, take it from me,  a gay guy".  I have always wanted to write this manual and so here is the start of my dream book, a manual for men on how to connect with women.  I know that there will be people who believe that I have a lot of nerve thinking that I know that much about women that I could help men interact effectivel...

Sometimes I hear a song and it inspires me.  It elicits thoughts about life and the lyrics seem to be the ones I needed to hear.  Such is the case with the song "Who I Was Born to Be" by Susan Boyle".  The song begins with, "when I was a child I could hear the wind in the trees".  As soon as those words came out of her mouth I thought about how much more receptive I was when I was a child.  I look back and think about how tuned in I was to what surrounded me, like the wind in the trees and the sound of the leaves.  When we are children there is this intuitive connection to nature and a naive and wonderful lens we look through were the little things mean something important.  We have this natural sense of appreciation for life and we seem to be more centered on joy.  We can hear what others are saying but more importantly we can hear what the earth is saying and we connect in a way that is natural.  I wonder what happens to us and what is ...

A few days ago I saw a short announcement for an upcoming Oprah's Next Chapter and the future guest made the statement, "Life doesn't happen to us, it happens for us".   I thought about these words and what they meant to me. I truly did feel like life was happening to me, not for me.  When I think back on my life it was as though I was not in control of anything and that was likely because I did not feel empowered. Life was happening to me, much of the time in a way that I did not necessarily feel I wanted it to be happening.  The difference between life happening to us and life happening for us is that in the latter way of thinking and feeling, we are empowered and feel like life is "for us", on our side, happening in ways that we feel good about.  We perceive life as a gift and not just an occurrence or a second hand experience we are having.  When life is happening for us, we are receiving it and it is aligned with our joy and...

As I have shared before some people inspire me and one of those women who motivate me is Iyanla Vanzant.  Her raw and real approach has often times been one that I needed to experience in order to create a change in my life.  This last time that I saw her she talked about intimacy and framed it as, "in to me see".  This of course elicited the thought that intimacy is about allowing others to see us, to see who we really are and invite them to look inside where the deeper self resides.  Intimacy means that I am willing to get out of my fear place and allow myself to be vulnerable with someone else and that someone can be a partner, a relative or even a stranger. I have had many opportunities to see how intimacy unfolds between myself and others around me and the universe is always offering up more of those chances to share something of intimacy and to put myself in a place where I am vulnerable, loving, compassionate, connected and reaching out t...