Zan Zendegi Azadi
I am a permanent resident of what the author, Franz Johansson calls The Intersection in his seminal work, The Medici Effect.
I live at the intersection of female, Iranian, American, Jew, Mother and Coach.
My platform is not a political one. But one cannot be a Professional Coach and not be a stand for a clear set of values.
I share the values that today is driving a revolution halfway around the world and also in my backyard.
Zan Zendegi Azadi
What are you a stand for?
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.
What if becoming more knowledgeable doesn't lead to more fulfillment and success in life? How would we live differently if we believed that? Would we consume less content, read fewer books, and pay less attention to experts? That seems like the natural result of such a belief. But seriously, who would want that? And what kind of Life Coach would recommend it?
I heard Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce say five words recently that I haven't been able to put down. She's the Jamaican sprinter, the most decorated 100-meter runner in history. She was on Mel Robbins' podcast, talking about doubt, age, and the belief that your best days are behind you. And in the middle of it, she said this: "Time will honor your greatness."
When was the last time you heard yourself, or someone else, say "I don't have time for that!" in response to a request for some kind of commitment? Recently I sat with an extraordinary young woman. She's ambitious, warm, the kind of person who lights up a room, and I learned that she hasn't slept properly in about a decade. This past year she's mostly been getting her eight hours, and she still feels exhausted to the bone. She falls asleep in the middle of tasks. She fights to stay energized.
I asked my clients a question recently, and their answers have stayed with me since. Here it is: If your family inherited only your habits, not your things, not your money, which ones would be your richest gifts? It's a strange kind of estate planning. No house, no savings, no heirlooms. Just the way you move through your days, handed down. And what struck me about the answers is that not one person hesitated. They already knew.
We've arrived at the last of my three Selves, and the most fun of them all. But I have to be honest with you, the way I've tried to be honest in every one of these posts: for years, my Future Self really resented me. And she had every reason to. Here's the confession. Almost two decades ago, I was sitting with my Coach, and he asked me a question that should have been easy.
Only one of my three Selves is holding the steering wheel right now. Not the Past; she's a passenger who won't stop narrating from the back seat. Not the Future; she's the destination, beautiful and a little blurry on the horizon. The only Self with her hands actually on the wheel, at this moment, is my Present Self.
In the last post, I introduced you to my (and your) three Selves: Past, Present, and Future, and promised we'd start with the hardest one to love. So here she is. My Past Self. I told you she's a bit delusional, with the memory of a hamster for anything good and the memory of an elephant for anything I'd rather forget. That part I played for laughs.
When we think about relationships, we often assume they're external dynamics. Folks come to coaching to improve their relationships at work and at home—as partners, parents, and family. They feel that if only they could improve those relationships through better communication, boundary setting, and other strategies, they'd reach a higher level of life satisfaction.