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coaching
"I simply can't take time away from work. I am too important! I have too much to do!"
Well, you are wrong! I know it because I was just as wrong when I was thinking the same things. Back when I was doing my 7-day workweeks of 16-hour workdays at one of my startups. And I would crash and burn if I didn’t take time off.
“Something prevents me to live as I want to live” - exclaims Liza. She is a very successful and super smart UX designer in her late 30's.
“Like today in the morning: I wanted to go to the gym, but there again was that part of me saying take it easy, lets look at more emails, maybe check Facebook... just take your time, don't do anything… Lets just do nothing, that is the best!”
“Oh no… do we really have to go back to my childhood to fix this?” “Can’t we do this any other way?”
I often hear this, like now, when we sit down to set leadership goals for my CEO client. She feels she could bring a lot more out of her team. In our session the obstacles show themselves and they too originate in her childhood.
Early negative programming happens, well, early. But why? How can messages stick with us for decades?!
"When you sing root your feet down and touch them with an energetic touch. This is your trigger to be brave! Have fun! It's like a party!" - This is my client Vivienne's inner singer who we contacted in a session. Vivienne is a beautiful petite woman and her inner singer is a big black African-American lady, her name is Betty. She goes on: "You are singing for the people you love. It's not hard... this if FUN!"
My client has stage fright....
Raise your hand if you think of yourself as a collection of many different selves.
“I'd bet a dollar to donuts that 99% of your clients do not think about themselves this way" remarked Tom, a client of mine in last week's session.
After I explain to my new clients what I am about to explain to you they immediately...
"I don't have the time for silly ideas. Fuck me. I need you to execute. Do you understand me?"
Meet Thomas. This is how he speaks to his employees at his startup.
After our first session, we get access to the many voices inside of Thomas, we meet Glum Thomas, who regrets these sorts of impatient outbursts. But Glum Thomas is incapable of stopping Commander Thomas from telling off his employees whenever he feels like it....
“She was part of me, I was part of her. I cannot let her go. She was stronger… then I became the strong one. She was on her deathbed for 9 weeks. I still have the smell of the hospital in my nose.”
Michelle lost her twin sister seven years ago. She spent three years paralyzed after being in a horrible car-crash. Michelle lost her job taking care of her and now after all these years she still cannot get on with her life. She thinks about her twin every day, maybe every waking hour...
“So after a few sessions I will never suffer these sort of pain again…. ever?
Justin is an art director at a premier ad agency. He suffers from a type of separation anxiety: whenever a deadline comes and he has to part with his work he is beset with crippling anxiety.
With his earnest eyes wide, he prods, "No fear? No anxiety? All gone?”
When did “talking about a problem” really work? Maybe 1 out of 10 times?
Listen up, men. If you feel like it definitely didn't work for you why don't you stop going to therapy, and focus on solving your problems instead.
Wait...what?
Three important points:
“I have never been single in my adult life! Not even for a one day!” - says Juliet, my new client. She's just listed ‘summoning the willpower needed to dump my boyfriend of three years’ as one of the goals of our sessions.
“I am on the bottom of his priorities. His career. His family. Drinking with his buddies at the ballgame. Even his dog. They're all more important than me."
“I am just like my mother! At home, I put suffocating boundaries around my daughter and I drive my husband freakin' crazy with my nagging. At work, I've been promoted twice in last year yet I feel like a fraud and at night, I have terrifying dreams where I strangle somebody to death.”
Miriam is a top lawyer in a huge German company. She's on a see-saw; her mood, her productivity, the quality of her care for her children all fluctuate wildly. Sometimes she is over the moon, sometimes she has thoughts of death and bloody murder. Up-down-up-down...
“My boss is killing me! Yesterday, just like everyday, he barged into my office while I was on a conference call, barking orders at me, demanding better sales numbers. This is after a record quarter!"
This is how John answered my question of "What's bothering you?"
"I cannot stand up to him. I have tried to give him a piece of my mind at least 15 times, but I simply cannot start. I'm a coward.”
"Marriage is so boooring! Don't you remember the thrill of the hunt? New night, new girl. Each conquest different. Remember the different smells… the different personalities… the feeling of completing the challenge! You always loved to wake up in a new house, in the morning after, you felt you were on the top of the world! We could never get enough of that." sang Augustus to my client, Peter.
After many years and even more relationships...
