“I’m thinking about going back to school,” a beloved coaching client told me. Those words always fill me with concern. Going back to school can be a great way to jump in a new direction or break through to the next level in your career. Going back to school can also be a colossal waste of time and money. This is the story of a client who went back to school after a deliberate decision-making process. She didn’t throw money …
Walking down the sidewalk
My coaching clients sometimes want to talk about increasing their executive presence. “How do you walk down the sidewalk?” I ask. Executive presence is about confidence, influence and emotional control (all coachable, by the way). The Harvard Business Review defines it as “your ability to project mature self-confidence,” among other attributes. Forbes describes it as “the ability to project gravitas.” So back to the sidewalk. A couple years ago, I read about someone who refused to get out of the way when she was …
Talking to old men
I went skiing the other day and talked to old men. The first was lying in the snow. The way he was lying there, struggling to get up, didn’t seem right so I skied over to see if I could help. “This is so embarrassing,” he said as he fell back into the icy snow. He was maybe late-70s, maybe a great skier when he was younger. Something didn’t seem right. “Let me get ski patrol for you,” I suggested. …
The car keys
A beloved client was late to our coaching session. This client, a senior leader at a large company you’ve heard of, finally arrived in my Seattle office flustered and apologetic. “Sorry, sorry!” he said, wiping sweat off his face. For some reason, I decided to pin him down: “Why are you late?” I asked. “I couldn’t find my car keys,” he said. “So I had to call Lyft, and that took longer than I thought.” He apologized again. Again, I …