If I could go back 20 years in time and coach, really coach, my 30-ish self, she would:
Realize—in her bones, and not just in the Instagram-filled areas of her brain—that she is far more powerful than she realizes.
Learn how to get off the hamster wheel and create a deeply intentional life.
Learn that life is long and short at the same time and how to honor both of those truths daily.
Stop people-pleasing and start powerfully serving herself and those she cares for.
Learn how to speak her truth with ease and calm.
Learn how to be a Fierce Giver rather than a Selfless one.
Learn how to slow down her thinking in order to speed up her achievements.
Learn to treat her body, mind, and soul like she is an Olympic athlete and save herself from so much physical and psychological pain in her later years.
Know that she doesn’t need to walk a mile on her knees to earn anything. Respect, love, money, and ease are her birthright and only she is getting in the way of claiming all of it.
Not pass some of her deepest fears and worries to her children, especially daughters.
Read life-changing books for transformation and not just information.
Learn to invest in herself without feeling doubt, shame, and guilt.
Learn how to communicate, negotiate, and lead more effectively.
Know that the grass is not greener on the other side, and wherever she finds herself, she alone is the gardener.
Learn that time management is pain management.
Stop the endless and futile search for Life Balance and instead learn Life Integration.
Become more light-hearted and relaxed.
Learn to play the game of being a corporate citizen skillfully and not as a daily suffer-fest.
Realize how beautiful she is.
Gain the courage to launch her own business (again).
Think about the last time you called someone “ambitious”. Was it entirely a compliment? Or did a small shadow come with it, the sense that you were naming something a little grasping, a little too much? Most of us have learned to hear ambition as a warning. We picture the people who claw and accumulate and never seem satisfied, and we file ambition next to greed, as if they were the same appetite.
One of the most common requests I hear, especially from business leaders and parents, is some version of “How do I motivate my employee, my team, my kid?” I tell them I have good news and bad news. Most people want the bad news first. So here it is: based on my years as a business owner, a parent, and a coach, there is no such thing as motivating another person.
I worshipped Intensity for more decades than I care to admit. "Go big or go home" was my motto, and I lived it everywhere. Instead of eating well most days, I would overeat for a stretch and then starve myself for a day to even the books. Instead of running a few miles regularly, I would run sporadically and then try to make up the lost mileage in one punishing weekend.
If I were allowed to keep only one tool in my coaching toolbox, with every other system and framework taken away, I know which one I'd keep. It's the one I call GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. It's a crude name for an idea that turns out to be ancient. There's a line in Proverbs I've been sitting with, chapter 4, verse 23. It's usually translated, "Above all else, guard your heart, for from it flow the springs of life."
I hear these words often from my clients, regardless of age or background. They express a universal wish for the three C’s—Clarity, Courage, and Confidence—that so many people hope to gain from professional coaching. But let me share a dirty little secret of the work. The problems we think we're facing because we lack clarity, courage, or confidence are rarely the actual problem.
I'm working with a client who was a colleague of mine when I was a fashion executive. Working together is putting it generously, because I ran a flagship and she ran an entire corporate department. She's younger than I am, but I looked up to her the way a child looks at an adult, as though they're invincible.
The agreements we make with each other shape the relationships we get. One of the most valuable relationships in my life is with the women in my private coaching group, The Wisdom Circle. By design, no one here is new to coaching, and the group's greatest value lies in the collective wisdom the women share with one another.
The Jewish New Year is almost upon us. And the recurring refrain in my mind is, "Phew. We made it!" I don't know what this year cost each of you, and I'm not going to pretend I do. But I know we're here. We took some dodgy turns and weren't sure we could handle the curves. We were scared and anxious and wanted to zone out with Netflix. We fell, got back up, and lived to tell.
In the last post, we did the work of a designer. We listened, researched, budgeted, and sketched. We designed the life. But I left you with a hard truth: a design isn't a building yet. An architect can produce the most beautiful set of plans you've ever seen, and you still can't live in a drawing. At some point, she has to stop sketching and build, because endless redesign is slow and expensive.
If I had it my way, I'd call what I do life design rather than life coaching. Life coaching implies that I somehow get my clients to find the discipline, heretofore missing in their lives, to finally reach their goals. Nothing could be further from the truth.