Welcome to Dancing Dolphin Coaching and Tutoring for Pre-Teens and Teenagers ... you can succeeed at whatever is important to you!

	I really enjoy every moment of my life, and I love to share that enthusiasm and zeal! If you are a junior-high or high-school student, live in the Ramona, California, area and are interested in having a life coach/tutor who will travel to your home, please read through the rest of this site. If my approach and philosophy appeal to you, contact me by email and we can set up an initial visit to meet and discuss what you are looking for and see if I'm a good match for your needs. Send email to: wurzel@dancingdolphin.net The rest of this page covers who I am, what I do, and how and why I do it. Please click on these links or scroll down to learn more: What are life coaching and tutoring? For tutoring, what subjects do I specialize in? Who am I? What is a wurzel? Why do I coach and tutor? What will I expect of you? What can you expect from me? About Coaching, Tutoring, and Mentoring Life Coaching is a relationship where the coach listens, asks questions, and provides feedback to help you accelerate your growth in whatever areas of your life you wish to advance. Tutoring is the sharing of knowledge in a specific subject to enhance one's skills and abilities. Some people have negative associations with tutoring implying a deficiency in some subject, but tutoring is really an effective way to customize your education to dig deeper into the areas that really excite you. Mentoring includes coaching and tutoring as needed, but even more importantly involves providing a model of key behaviors such as leadership, self-discipline, and intellectual achievement. Ironically, one secret to doing well at things in the world is to realize that your value doesn't depend on those things or how you do at them. Concentrate on valuing yourself and your unique creativity first, and "achievement" will follow, if that's what's right for you. A fun and enthusiastic combination of coaching, tutoring, and mentoring can help you enjoy life more and create the kind of life dream you want to have. Some people are happier and learn better in larger groups such as scouting, church groups, or school and school clubs. Others will enjoy and thrive much better with one-on-one interaction in the areas that are important to them. For these people, a coaching and tutoring relationship will make learning much more enjoyable and long-lasting. Back to top My specialty areas for tutoring: Like all of us, I do best in the areas I'm really passionate about. I love programming computers. I believe that no matter what you want to be doing in life, even a basic understanding of how computers work will help you out. If you want to go beyond web browsing and playing games to being someone who can write a web browser or create a game, I'd love to be involved in that learning! I love physics and chemistry. Being able to predict how far a ball can fly or whether a certain kind of drain cleaner is going to ruin the plumbing is really an amazing art for humans to have invented. I love mathematics. The more math you know, the more physics, chemistry, and computer programming you can do. The more of those you do, the more math makes sense. I love riding the unicycle. Riding one wheel is twice as much fun as riding a bicycle. Besides being a rare skill and a great way to attract attention, unicycling helps build concentration and balance that can help you in any other physical activity. I love flying airplanes. Flying is a wonderful combination of knowledge, skill, and art. Learning to fly means studying weather, geography, physics, aerodynamics, technology, engines, communication, and many many other subjects and then applying that knowledge to a practical problem -- getting from here to there. I love learning new things. There are so many other areas of life than what I've listed here. I go through life reading, observing, studying, and asking questions. As we work together, many other areas are likely to come up, and I'll be thrilled to learn about them together with you. Back to top A bit about me: My name is wurzel. I am the happy husband of Susan and proud father of toddlers Muir and Larkin. I was very fortunate to have a mentor early in life who gave me my first job programming computers at age 14. Around that same time I listened to my first set of tapes by motivational speaker Dr. Denis Waitley. This combination of hard skills and positive attitude has led me on a very interesting and enjoyable life path, including attending Caltech and founding a successful telecommunications company in San Diego. I am concerned about the environment and believe that intelligent use of technology plus a little self-control on all our parts can result in a very livable life for everyone on the planet. I don't have cable TV and don't receive any broadcast channels; instead I prefer to read books if I'm not doing something more active like building something out of wood or working on the house. I dabble at playing piano, flute, and djembe drum. I never wear long pants or close-toed shoes. For a long time my life motto was "crazy but not stupid" but recently I refined my life vision to "making life greener wherever I am." Back to top Why do I coach and tutor? I love learning, and I believe the best way to really learn and understand things is to teach them. Throughout my career of sitting in front of a computer screen and going to management meetings, one of my favorite parts has always been giving presentations and training sessions. I've been told often that I am good at making complicated subjects simple, understandable, and fun. I've considered becoming a school teacher but I know I wouldn't be happy in that kind of constraining bureaucracy, so I've chosen to take on this work one-on-one or in small groups. Back to top What will I expect of you? Be impeccable with your word. Don't tell yourself things that limit you. Ask questions and be honest if you don't understand something or if I'm not being clear. Offer me feedback so that I can improve. Don't take things personally. If we're working on a new skill and it doesn't come to you immediately (or ever!), that is not a reflection of your worth. I will give you feedback on things I observe, and those are only my opinions for you to consider or discard as you choose. Don't make assumptions. Challenge me. Ask questions. Dig deeper. If it's not making sense to you, it may not really be making sense to me either and we can both learn something. Always do your best. Your best will change from day to day, but knowing you did the best you could at the time frees you from criticizing yourself later -- you did the best you could at that moment. Back to top What can you expect from me? Be impeccable with my word. I will be authentic and honest in sharing my observations, feelings, and thoughts as we learn together. Don't take things personally. You are encouraged to share with me any thoughts, feelings, suggestions, criticisms, or other feedback you may have. I will accept them with gratitude for your openness. Don't make assumptions. In fact, if I'm doing my job well I will be asking many more questions than I make statements. One of the joys of tutoring and coaching is that hearing someone else's questions causes me to doubt and investigate my own long-held assumptions. Always do my best. My best will change from day to day, but I will be fully committed to the tutoring/coaching relationship and provide whatever value I can. Yes, this is the same list as the things I will expect of you. It's a simple, beautiful, and effective formula for life called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Back to top

This site last updated 2004 Feb 15

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