200 words before your coffee gets cold

AI-generated social media content is like plastic surgery:
if it’s done well,
you don’t know it has been done at all.
When done poorly, it’s all too obvious
and can leave you even less attractive
as a brand than if you did nothing at all.
I’ve read, watched & attended
articles, videos & workshops
on the value of using AI-generated social media content.
Nearly everyone will admit to an AI first draft
(aka a little Botox, a little nip/tuck),
but then everyone swears they do the
“heavy lifting”
(aka the workouts, rest, nutrition)
themselves.
I see little evidence of this.
Most AI-generated content sounds like
exactly what it is.
Flat, robotic, factually correct
(sort of) but lacking the
heart, soul and, most importantly,
the voice and tone of the brand.
Most people don’t know the difference.
They read an AI-generated draft and think
‘Yeah, I would say that.’
But would you? And would you say it
like that?
It’s not wrong, like plastic surgery
(to beat an analogy absolutely. to. death.)
isn’t wrong.
It just doesn’t look like you.
And, for the people to whom you
and your brand matter most,
the difference can be obvious
(and just a little bit scary).

Storytelling is, of course, an art.
We learn through stories.
Sometimes passed down through families;
sometimes told through books, movies, or
other forms of media.
Storytelling can be a powerful learning tool.
It can be wildly persuasive,
especially in sales & marketing.
Nearly every advertiser has learned
the value of storytelling as it relates
to selling its product or service.
Consumers see themselves in
the scene in relation to the featured
product, a connection is made and
a sale is won.
Used effectively
(and, sparingly, I might add)
stories can help a client or customer
discover something new about
themselves or a related situation.
A thoughtful story can provide context,
perspective, and space to consider
another point of view.
What happens when you are always
the hero of your own storytelling?
When, in the retelling, you always said
just the right thing.
Made the right move.
Won the race.
Closed the deal.
Got the girl.
Now you’re not a storyteller.
You’re kind of a self-aggrandizing as*hole.
Good storytellers rarely make the story about them.
They leave space for the listener.
They share successes and failures.
Wins and losses.
And they leave air for others
to create their stories
or to just breathe.

When I was growing up, I drank:
-Tang
-Milk with Nestle’s Quik
-Coke
When I got to high school, I added:
-Beer
-Boone’s Farm Wine
-MD2020
Much later,
I started drinking coffee
(as you may have guessed)
and more sophisticated
forms of alcohol.
There were many years,
decades, in fact,
when I drank coffee in the a.m. & wine in the p.m.
Nothing. In. Between.
It never occurred to me and
presumedly others of my generation
to drink water.
And yet, I don’t recall ever being thirsty.
Not then; not now.
Now, I drink water because I know I’m supposed to.
But, if I’m being honest, I’m still not thirsty.
I drink water because I know it will come up:
“Did you bring water?”
“Do you need a water?”
“Can I get you a water?”
Today, much of my headspace is
dedicated to hydration.
I recognize the availability of water
is something that comes with privilege.
In that regard, I suppose I never thought
about water because I never had to think about water.
But also we just didn’t drink it.
Now I, too, drink water.
I don’t like it, but I drink it.
(and vodka, which is basically water)

It surprises me to say this,
and I probably wouldn’t have 30, 20, 10
or even five years ago:
for me variety is mostly over-rated.
As I stare down what’s left of my “second half”,
I have fallen in love
with routines and rituals.
My grandmother, who lived with us
when she was the age I am now,
had her cuppa Sanka and buttered toast
every. morning.
She watched her “stories” – soap operas of the day –
with religious conviction
every. afternoon.
These days, I go to bed unashamedly at 8:30ish
looking forward to my every day breakfast
of oatmeal and a preciously crafted (by me) latte.
I walk my dog.
I read.
I write a little.
I don’t need to know about the world of culinary options available at my doorstep.
When I go out, I’ll nearly always choose the burger and a martini.
Old(er) people aren’t boring as I one assumed; we’re discerning.
We’ve been there, done that and now we get to choose.
What I wish I knew then is, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz,
we had the power all along
to live our lives exactly as we choose.
For some, it just took this long to claim it.

It’s marathon day in Chicago.
I’ve run, albeit slowly, five marathons.
They were physically taxing but
watching a marathon
takes far more out of me emotionally.
Every. Time.
I wasn’t even trying
to watch the marathon today.
I was trying to get to Whole Foods
to buy cilantro*
and there they were:
crowds of people,
all kinds of people,
not running
(oh, there were runners,
reportedly 30,000 this year),
but cheering the runners on.
I was sobbing so openly
I had to duck into a public rest room
to pull myself together.
It could be the coming together of humanity
or it could be the one event
where people unabashedly ask for support
and get it.
The turnout is bigger than your
birthday, graduation, and a wedding
rolled into one.
Crowds of strangers shout your name,
ring cow bells
and hold up signs
carefully penned with clever encouragement.
I’m choking up again as I write this.
Why is it so hard to ask for support?
Why is it so satisfying when we get it
and, even more curiously,
why is it so moving when we give it?
It seems like the perfect time to humbly request:
more cowbell!
in my life.

*ask me for my chicken tortilla soup recipe

I have no connection to Owen Wilson.
Yet, when I was packing up the nearly a hundred books
I read during Covid to donate to a women’s shelter,
just like that I did.
Packing the books, I found
Ten Poems to Change Your Life by Roger Housden,
a book my friend Kristine gave me in 2008.
I didn’t intend to donate it and returned it to its usual place
on the nightstand in my guest room.
With the books boxed and waiting by the door
to be loaded in my car,
I took a break with the latest issue of Esquire,
the men’s magazine I’ve been reading since college
(I know more about tying a tie and making the perfect
Manhattan than any woman needs to know,
but the writing is always excellent)
that had arrived that day.
Owen Wilson is featured on the cover.
He and the author visit a Hydration Room
for medicinal-ish hangover recovery
where the nurse retrieves a copy of, you guessed it,
Ten Poems to Change Your Life by Roger Housden,
Wilson had left behind a couple years earlier.
Synchronicity.
It may mean nothing but, just in case,
Owen, I’m here if you need me.

Shout out to Jen Jones Donatelli for reintroducing me to the fun of synchronicity. Find her @ https://creativegroove.com

I have long been a fan of
proactively managing my calendar.
It’s the simplest and most effective system I know
for creating habits, setting intentions, honoring self and others,
as well as the more rudimentary tasks of being a calendar:
scheduling appointments and remembering birthdays.
The “memory system” of not writing things down is
decidedly less effective in my experience.
As a coach, by definition, I am not in the advice-giving business.
That being said, I must confess to imploring a client or 20
to please get a calendar and use it.
Recently, in the coach’s version of “Physician, heal thyself”,
I noticed I was doing a lousy job of managing my own calendar,
particularly as it related to giving myself a break during the day.
Blocking time for “lunch”, failed to get my attention
and I routinely scheduled over that time.
In frustration, I created a daily, reoccurring appointment titled:
“Julie deserves lunch.”
Julie deserves lunch.
I do deserve lunch.
Now, every time I am tempted to over-book,
I am reminded that, in fact, I do deserve lunch,
and find another spot for my client.
Words have meaning.
Calendars work.
And lunch dates with myself can be tasty and empowering.

I love this line from Julia Cameron’s The Artist Way.
It’s a good reminder to:
“Ask for 100% of what you want, 100% of the time
and be willing to stay around long enough to negotiate the difference.”*
Not having an opinion doesn’t make you accommodating,
it makes you tedious.
Consider the friend (or you?) who says:
Any restaurant is fine with me.
You pick the movie.
Come over any time.
Now I have to do all the mental work of deciding
what we both might enjoy
and neither one of us may get what we want.
Failing to have an opinion is, in fact, to be inauthentic.
Meanwhile, authenticity is the quality everyone claims as
critical to his/her success and satisfaction.
True authenticity is a willingness to state an opinion
even when it’s unpopular.
It is to ask for what you want
even if it means being a little (or a lot) selfish.
Some of my clients routinely deny themselves pleasure
as a way to appear unselfish mainly to their spouse.
They forgo regular exercise, self-improvement classes,
dinner or drinks with friends
and leave in its place
boredom, anger and resentment.
“Afraid to appear selfish, we lose our self.”

*I am told this was said often by Laura Whitworth, one of the co-founders of the Co-Active Training Institute.

Change can be hard.
If my clients’ lives and careers
are any indication,
the longer you’ve been at a job
or a relationship or holding onto
any self-limiting belief,
the harder it is to shake.
It’s said the opposite of love isn’t hate
but indifference.
This pandemic has given everyone
the opportunity to challenge indifference.
Indifference that results in
days that turn into months
by decisions made or not made
from indifference and
fear of the unknown.
If I could just know for sure,
my clients say
(To be fair, I’ve breathed
the same desperate words to my coach).
Another gift of the pandemic:
if you thought you knew how this year was going,
surprise!
The first step isn’t knowing what’s next;
it’s knowing not this.
Not this job.
Not this relationship.
Not this fear.
It’s knowing not this
and then getting curious about the possibilities.
“What’s next” is a mystery to be solved again and again,
each time with
new learnings, new data and new dreams.
Years ago, a man I was dating exclaimed:
“You’re never satisfied!”
Thank you, I said,
only later realizing it wasn’t meant as a compliment,
while whispering to myself not this
and moving on.

Sometimes I struggle
to explain the unique relationship
between coach and client.
And then,
I stumbled upon this passage
between Maisie Dobbs, investigator and psychologist,
and her former nursing colleague, Elsbeth Masters,
in a 15-book fictional series set in post-WWI London
I am currently breezing my way through while
semi-sheltering in place…

“She wondered what had inspired
Masters to confront her,
why had she spoken her mind in such a candid fashion?
Maisie had felt discomfort, yes,
but something else had happened.
She felt…tightly held,
as if Elsbeth Masters’ honesty were
enveloping her in with caring
even as she challenged her actions”

It so perfectly describes the
heart-led coach’s dance of
challenge and champion
in service of the client’s growth.
There is an intimacy that is created
because of the love that is shared
when a coach believes in the client
perhaps even more than the client believes in herself.
In the novel, as in life, Maisie was left
pondering the exchange
long after the conversation had ended.
So true of coaching.
The deepest work often comes
after the coaching session has ended
with an inquiry the client takes away
to examine from the head and, more often, the heart.

A decade ago I wrote a blog post
cheekily titled “This is Why You Don’t Kill Yourself”
about the unexpected joy of an evening spent alone
with good take-out and a bad movie.
(if you’re wondering: Thai and Twilight).
I spend a lot of time alone.
I work alone; I live alone.
At times, it’s lonely.
During the shelter in place of COVID-19
I first remarked how little my life changed.
As days turned into weeks,
I noticed a shift
from alone to lonely.
I keep thinking of the Lichtenstein-style illustrations
with a woman exclaiming:
“Oh No, I forgot to have a baby!”
Except mine would say:
“Oh No, I forgot to get married (again)!”
I’ve been single most of my adult life.
A fact that alternately baffles and disappoints me.
I assure you it’s not for lack of trying.
There is the loss of companionship, for sure.
More profoundly is the
weight of making every decision
and creating my own joy.
Children help. A lot.
But some decisions seem too hard for one person to make
and some life events are no fun to do alone.
Sending kids to college, relocating and
oh, I don’t know,
a global pandemic.

I work with a lot of people
who come to coaching to change their life.
One question I always ask is:
what are you doing now?
Not what is your job,
but what are you doing?
One client wanted a job helping youth,
preferably in sports.
He felt passionately about this.
Yet no amount of time, money or effort was being
expended in this direction.
He was waiting for that job to provide
all his success, satisfaction and joy
and making himself miserable in the meantime.
Fulfillment is a tall order for any job
when he could be
volunteering at an afterschool program,
coaching at the park district or
grabbing a basketball for a game of pick-up
with neighborhood kids.
Not because it will “look good on his resume” (it will),
but because it will feed that passion in a way
few jobs will.
Lives change by taking action.
Sometimes with the help of a coach,
more often with the realization it’s an inside job.
And no one is going to move you forward but you.
If you’re looking to a job
to save your life,
you’re looking in the wrong place.
Save yourself.
Do something that matters to you.

Coaching is expensive.

I know because I am a coach and I have had a coach for years.

It’s expensive and valuable because coaching works.

I can save you the time and money of hiring a coach

with the following observations gleaned through more than a decade

of being on both sides of the coaching relationship.

It may take a little longer and the path may not be

quite so clear, but you will get there.

Find work you love and adjust your lifestyle to

the earnings that work affords you.

Stop working for assholes; if you’re the asshole, stop.

Stop dating assholes. If you’re the asshole, see above.

Eat less; move more.

Make a decision and move forward.

Pick something and do it.

Get comfortable being uncomfortable.

Trust and go.

You’ll never know for sure.

There are no “for sures” only “for nows”.

Use a coach or your own good sense to

deepen the learning about yourself

and move forward into action.

Let that action inform the next action.

Be risky – because every decision has some risk built in —

but not reckless

with you career, your money, your health, your love,

with whatever is your next “what’s next”.

I’m learning German.
I’m learning German so I can sound
angrier than I already do
and a little sad.
Just kidding.
I’m learning German so I can at the very least
converse with my preschool-aged
granddaughters who are remarkably fluent.
(Vas ist “Paw Patrol”?)
And maybe order a coffee.
(Einen kaffee, bitte!)
Practicing with my Babbel app,
which I’m using to augment the actual class
I’m taking,
I got stuck on the voice recognition version
of “I am Paula”.
Ich bin Paula.
Ich bin Powella.
Ich bin Paulwa.
Ich bin Pawoolah
Ich bin Pallaowah.
Ich bin Pawlowah.
Babbel wasn’t having it
even though I’m pretty sure it knew what I meant.
After about 75 unsuccessful attempts,
my son appeared in the doorway of my office.
“Stop. Please stop.
You will literally never need to know how to say:
‘I am Paula’
in any language.”
I had to admit, he was right.
How often do I get head-down focused
on the activity in front of me
and lose sight of the bigger picture
and the desired outcome?
I see this in salespeople quite often.
Lots of activity; not a lot of useful outcome.
Now I think of that as “pulling a Paula”.

I always have had a bit of
travel anxiety.
I attribute this to a deep appreciation
for the life I have created at home.
When I travel, I experience a vague
under-current of “tempting fate”.
As in, if something is to go wrong,
from lost luggage to a broken tooth
to an untimely death,
it all could have been avoid by
simply staying home.
(This is usually calmed by enthusiastically
embracing the local offering of alcohol).
The result is, until recently,
I preferred weekend getaways:
a day to arrive,
a day to revel in the splendor,
a day to scurry back home.
If not refreshed at least triumphant
in having been somewhere.
Now more than ever people seem to
be embracing the extended vacation
as a true break and reset to their life.
A sabbatical.
A gap year.
A remote working situation that allows
for movement from place to place.
Twice now I’ve spent nearly a month away.
Far way.
I have to say
I am a new fan of far.
The further the better.
Far makes it impossible for your mind to
connect the dots
all the way back to your real life.
Whatever and wherever that may be.

I mostly hated school.
I was popular enough.
More well-liked than popular
which even as a teenager
I knew to prefer.
Popular burns too hot;
well-liked can go the distance.
And for the most part it has.
But, I struggled with the school part.
My right brain had it going on:
literature, creative writing, theater, art;
my left brain had trouble keeping up.
Even today it is truly astounding what I don’t know.
An alternative high school program
followed by an unremarkable English degree
got the education done
and I never looked back.
Until damned if coaching didn’t spark in me
a new love of learning.
It took me nearly 30 years to forget
how much I hated school,
another 10 to nurture that flame of curiosity
with workshops, certificates and TedTalks,
and nearly another 10 to decide what to study.
But, study I did.
All the way to an M.S. degree earned last Friday –
nearly 40 years after that English degree –
in Forensic Psychology.

It was wildly interesting
with just the right balance of challenge,
accomplishment, structure and creativity.
I have been asked what I am going to do
with my shiny new degree.
Maybe something; maybe nothing.
Either way: totally worth it.

As part of Forbes Coaches Council I have been very fortunate to be invited to share my opinions — and you know I have them — on a variety of coaching and related topics over the years. Read my latest post on constructive and not-so-constructive feedback and how to tell the difference here

My coaches training dovetailed nicely
(is there any other way to dovetail?)
with my years of copywriting and
again with my recent study of forensic psychology.
All three require the conscious and deliberate
use of language.
In my work as a coach, my ear is trained
to listen for absolutes and definites and
question them back to my clients:
No one hires anyone over 50.
Women don’t date bald men.
No one gets promoted here.
The danger in absolutes is they are often
easily proved false
which can damage personal and professional credibility.
Sharing definitive opinions disguised as fact
is a distraction that quickly can derail conversation
and reveal more about the accuser than the accused.
Often, but not always,
(see what I did there?)
it represents a closely held, self-limiting belief
that simply isn’t serving its holder.
When someone opens with an
opinion about something you know to be false
there’s no place for the conversation to go
but defensive.
Rather than agree with the unagreeable,
better to shift to curiosity
and what you and difininado
can agree on.
That way you’re not agreeing
Your bald friend is undateable,
nor are you claiming he is.

I used to delete unwanted emails
like. It. Was. My. Job.
Every morning I would power through
my three email inboxes
and madly delete the unwanted,
poorly translated SEO solicitations,
the worthy causes that are worthy,
but no longer my causes,
and the products that I may have
purchased once,
or thought about purchasing once or
randomly visited their website once a long time ago
only to be stalked
within an inch of my e-life by their relentless emails,
with their desperate pleas to
“buy me”.
Lordy, have some self-respect.
Clicking that delete. delete. delete. button
gave me a (false) sense of power and a(n even falser)
sense of accomplishment.
It may have been okay if it had stopped there,
but the messages popped up all day
forcing me to play whack-a-mole with the delete button
every free moment.
Over the holidays, when I had time to waste,
I started unsubscribing to every message
I no longer wanted to receive.
It took a millisecond longer to turn not now
into not ever.
Now, I open my inboxes and it’s like opening a
newly Ikea-organized closet.
There’s room to breathe and (nearly) every message
is one I actually want to read.

Someone contacted me via LinkedIn
with this message:
“my mentor suggested I contact you
to activate my professional network”.
This made me sad.
Sad because either the mentor is woefully
disconnected from how actual human contact works
or the person so grossly misunderstood
the direction as to render the mentoring useless.
It’s the professional equivalent of
a match.com message that reads:
I would like to buy you a drink for
the purpose of having sexual relations
with you.
Letting me know up front you’re using me
doesn’t make it any more okay or
any less icky.
Further, it violates my first rule of
relationships, professional or personal:
bother to be interesting.
I believe I learned this from an early boss
who made us practice having an opinion.
I mostly worked in fear of her throwing out a
question I could not volley back with informed curiosity.
But, like the best lessons, I learned from my
failure and never forgot it.
I like meeting strangers – I dedicate a portion
of every week to appointments for exactly this purpose.
When people reach out, my response is always the same:
I’m always interested in meeting interesting people.
The rest is up to you.

There’s an old joke that goes:
How do you know someone went to Harvard?
They tell you.
The same is true for “Type A” personalities
and perfectionists.
They tell you.
Immediately.
And often.
At first with feigned embarrassment,
that sounds an awful lot like pride,
and later with emphatic attachment
to this self-appointed and self-aggrandizing title.
I always appreciate this information.
It serves as an early warning sign
for challenging times ahead.
I don’t even know what being a perfectionist means
when the human condition guarantees we are failing
pretty dramatically at any given time.
For sure, I love passionate people
who work long and hard with
dogged dedication.
What I don’t love is people who
use their Type A distinction as a
“get out of jail free” card
for bad and bullying behavior.
I have never, ever had even one person
tell me they are a Type B personality.
Type B should be used to self-identify
someone who cares, just not enough
to whither a co-worker with demands
until patches of hair fall out.
Yours and theirs.
Is “Type B” even a thing?
It should be.
These solid Bs are the ones you want to hire
and hang with.

I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I was such a pill, as my grandmother would say.
I’m sorry for all the disinterested eye rolls,
unrelated and, likely, loud side conversations,
self-righteous and unabashed lack of curiosity,
completely unfounded arrogance as to what I thought I already knew
and my complete lack of graciousness for your being a guest in our space,
wherever that space may have been.
If having your own children is payback
for how you treated your parents,
then being a workshop facilitator
is payback for what an ass I was
when I was younger and thought I was a
whole lot smarter than I know I am now.
Facilitation can be lonely work.
Today, I am grateful,
often to tears alone in my car after a presentation,
to the one person who…
jumped in and went first when I asked for volunteers,
shared a personal insight or example to support the topic,
quieted the distracters,
made encouraging eye contact,
asked if they could get me coffee or water,
stayed after to thank me,
asked if I needed help packing up,
walked me out.
I am appreciative beyond measure and
more than you will ever know.

I work with people every day

who feel like failures.

They come to coaching

because they’re

out of work or about to be

out of work.

Getting along at work,

but not getting ahead at work.

They hear “failure”.

I hear “fit”.

Some even come to me

wishing they would get fired

because they hate their jobs

So. Much.

(There’s a way to make this

happen: quit).

Yet, they still feel like failures.

My reaction is always the same:

thank God you figured that

out, and the sooner we get

you outta there, the better.

I’m not one of those coaches

who believes there are no failures,

only “learning experiences”.

There are failures.

Big ones. Messy ones.

Soul-crushingly sad ones.

But finding you’re not good at,

or don’t like, a job is not one of them.

Any more than finding out you

don’t care for Thai food, you’re not

much for bowling or you would just as

soon skip that heavy metal concert.

It’s not a mark against your

intelligence, character or in any way

a predictor of future success.

So, move on. Don’t look back.

Try on something more your size.

Something that, for you, is the perfect fit.

Jodie & Kristine got married.

We met 10 years ago

when we paid a lot of money

and pledged a year of our lives

to a Leadership Program

based on a vague paragraph on

CTI’s website.

It said something like

“Every relationship will change”.

I came home, fired my colorist and bought new carpeting.

Jodie & Kristine, on the other hand,

fell in love.

Kristine ended a relationship.

Jodie ended a relationship.

Kristine changed cities.

They bought a coffee company!

Jodie switched careers.

Kristine switches careers.

And, by now you may have guessed,

Jodie switched teams.

They’ve grown a life, a business

and two lovely daughters together.

Talk about ROI!

As I’ve watched them,

I’ve often thought

I will never love as much

because I will never have the courage

to risk so much.

In leadership, we learned to “trust and go”

and that’s what these two do every day.

Part of our program, naturally,

was a ropes course.

There was a baleying sequence:

the climber says “Climbing!”,

the baleyer says “Climb on!”,

Jodie says “Tally Ho!”

Whenever you’re taking a leap of faith,

for love or otherwise,

do what Kristine & Jodie do:

trust and go and…

Tally Ho!

For more information on The Coaches Training Institute’s (CTI) Leadership Program,

visit: http://www.coactive.com

For more information on how to make love and coffee, visit: http://www.javaloveroasters.com

Part of my practice is

career transition coaching.

People of all ages and all industries

looking to find meaningful work

(that pays a shit-ton of money).

But first, they must learn to navigate

the painful and, in my opinion,

archaic practice of writing a resume.

It’s like wearing a tie,

saying “I’m so sorry for your loss” at a funeral or

removing the bride’s garter at a wedding.

It’s vaguely uncomfortable.

We don’t know why we do it.

But, we’re afraid to stop.

So, we numbly carry on with our manic, MadLIb resume clichés:

Highly motivated self-starter

Detail-oriented professional

Result-driven sales leader

The interviewee not wanting to write it;

The interviewer definitely not wanting to read it.

LinkedIn does a bang-up job

of making the resume seem as uncool

as the cousin your parents still make you hang with.

But still, we can’t seem to let it go.

A while ago, I contacted a friend

who is a senior executive at LinkedIn.

I had a client I thought he should meet

and asked if I could forward the client’s resume.

His response:

Happy to meet anyone you think is worth meeting.

P.S. what’s a resume?

Exactly.

LinkedIn says it all.

I have a sign in my office that reads:

Coffee. Money. Love.

I’m only half-kidding when I say it’s my life motto.

I have adopted a similar mantra for

organizing and prioritizing my days.

People. Money. Things.

When I plan my day,

typically the night before,

I think first of the tasks

that involve other people.

Who’s wanting for a response

from me?

Who needs my time & attention?

People always come first.

Second, what tasks will make me money?

Often this means tackling billing

or reaching out to former or prospective

clients to talk about new projects

or working on some aspect of marketing.

If you work on salary, you may not

think daily about making money,

but you may think in terms of what tasks

will move you toward a promotion,

a bonus or a new job.

Finally, I focus on things.

What are the things that need to get done?

This could be administrative work,

like scheduling or reading or research,

or, as (all too) often is the case, could be buying

things on Amazon Prime at 10:00 p.m.

But, hey, sometimes you need

a $3.99 kitchen scrubber tomorrow.

So what’s your version of

People. Money. Things?

In 1989 one of the first Starbucks*

opened in Chicago.

I had been to Starbucks in Seattle,

had tasted the future,

and was ready when they opened

their Chicago doors.

My drink was a

“Grande Skim Misto…with a straw”.

Twice a day. Every day.

I believe my kids still shout this in their sleep

from time to time

because it was mostly them

who ran in on our way to school.

(This sounds like really bad parenting but, hey, they got a

cookie, so I don’t think they minded)

After a decade of that,

Starbucks lost its appeal

and I moved on to local shops

where I settled for the last decade or so.

“Small Skim Latte”.

Twice a day. Every day.

Until last Saturday.

At a coffee shop near my house,

a triple shot latte

(That’s right: triple shot.

That’s how it goes with addiction.)

is $6.40 with tip.

SIX – FORTY!

I haven’t bought a coffee since.

Oh, I still drink coffee.

I’m not dead.

I make it myself in an adorable

coffee maker my daughter bought me.

 People talk about how hard it is to change.

It can be.

Or, it can be as easy as choosing.

* This was not the first Starbucks in Chicago, but it was the first in my then neighborhood near Oak & Rush Street. Starbucks opened its first Chicago shop at 111 W. Jackson Blvd. in the Loop on Oct. 19, 1987.

I’m on vacation and I’m hiking.

The hike down to the ocean is fairly quick and easy;

the hike back up: daunting.

On the other side of the hike

is the rest of my day,

regrettably, my water bottle,

lunch and,

because I am on vacation,

likely a mid-day cocktail or two.

All things I want badly and immediately.

Did I mention the hike back is

steep, rocky and hard?

I want to Stop. Quit.

Sit down. Rest awhile.

Yet, the rest of my day is calling.

I’ve run a few marathons

(Not a metaphor, I really run marathons)

and each time I long to quit.

I’ve watched enviously as fellow runners

call an Uber and tap out along the route.

(yes – this is actually a thing people do)

This will never be me.

As long as I keep moving

one step forward.

Assess. Another step.

I will get comfortable

in my discomfort.

I step forward

again. And again.

Until I see the road,

my car and, blessedly,

a shaved ice guy

like a mirage at the top of the hike.

I will always choose

being in motion –

whatever the context –

over sitting on the side

waiting to tap out.

Somehow I got connected to a

“secret” group on Facebook,

#pantsuitnation,

of 3.1M Hillary supporters.

Regardless of political

affiliation – maybe there

was something similar

for Trump supporters,

I don’t know because apparently

I don’t know any — the faces

and stories were incredibly

humbling and moving.

Literally millions of posts

proudly offering

daily, hourly, minute-by-minute

reminders of how much

we

as humans

long to be

seen and heard.

Post after post

shows women in pantsuits

(some men too. Adorable.)

stating their reasons for

being “with her”.

“Because my hardworking

Mexican immigrant husband

can’t vote, but I can”

“Because I live in a country that

allows me to do the work I love

as a construction site fore(wo)man

without being told ‘it’s a man’s job’”.

Beautiful face after beautiful face.

Story after story.

Standing strong to claim

I am here.

I have a voice.

I matter.

The election is over,

and I see the group virtually

milling around not wanting the connection to end,

asking each other

“what now?”

For me,

I hope it doesn’t end.

I hope the group opens up

to anyone coming in peace.

Anyone who wants to say

I am here.

I have a voice.

I matter.

Solitude is not for everyone.

And in truth, I currently have

more than I require or desire.

But there is a difference between

solitude by default

and solitude by design.

Recently, I chose the latter.

I’m writing this from an

integrated wellness center

In Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Lest, like my good-humored children,

you think this is code for

“mommy checked herself into rehab”,

it’s not.

Although the notable absence of electronics,

processed food and alcohol – along with a

behavior modification program designed

around cuddling chickens –

did give me pause.

Blessedly, there is caffeine.

Christopher J. Harris Realtor:

http://www.realty1santafe.com

(In case you’re thinking of buying out west)

Sunrise Springs

http://www.sunrisesprings.com

(In case you’re thinking about cuddling chickens)

I’m here to meet a dear friend

and also to be away.

As in “not here”.

I brought with me several tedious

administrative projects that have been

taking up space on my desk and,

more debilitatingly, in my head.

I’ve already completed in one day

what I haven’t been able to complete

in months.

Somehow tedious is more tolerable

with a change of scenery and without

the daily distractions of an ordinary life.

For me, work isn’t something to escape,

it’s something to drop into.

So being away for a few days allows me

the space to think deeper

about work and life

and what’s next.

As coaches, we’re trained to

talk about closure and completion.

Something about this always

feels not right to me.

Closing off past relationships

is to deny the undeniable parts

of us that are still entwined.

The rest of our stories

together and apart.

Yes, of course, do what you

need to do to complete what’s now,

but then consider leaving the door open

just enough

to breathe what’s next into the room.

When you are ready.

Today, I’m trying not to have to know

everything

all at once.

To let the emotional air circulate

and not be so de-fi-nite

about what I think I know.

If I loved you once,

I’ll love you forever.

Though not in the same way, perhaps.

I’ll think of you often –

more often than you’ll know –

because I’ve left space for you.

Which is why my completions

nearly always include the promise:

you’re in my life forever now.

A man in my life used to say

I’m right here

even when he wasn’t.

Which was strangely comforting

then and still.

We’re all right here.

Able to open the door a crack

at any time

or swing it wide open

and let ourselves breathe in again.

If it takes 10,000 hours

to become an expert,

then I have earned the

equivalent of a PhD

in narcissism.

I have befriended,

dated, married,

hired, studied

and been forever

linked to it.

Take the are you a narcissist quiz..or don’t

if you don’t care 

http://psychcentral.com/quizzes/narcissistic.htm

While I attract it,

I also work to repel it.

But damn if it doesn’t

look different every time.

At first blush, narcissism

can look like confidence

and personality with a

capital P.

However, soon after,

the air begins to leave

the room and you

(and by you, I mean me)

notice there’s no

room. left. to. breathe.

I’m learning to insist

on reciprocal relationships.

Ones that feel well-balanced

with an appropriate

amount of consideration

on both sides.

Like a well-curated wardrobe,

the result may be less is more.

That’s okay because less

is so much more satisfying.

And, lest I am guilty of projecting

my own faults on others,

I have taken the online

assessment several times.

Turns out I didn’t need to.

I’m told if you have enough

self-awareness to wonder

if you are a narassist,

you’re probably not.

And if you are,

you probably don’t care.

Turns out I score poorly.

At best, I exhibit

high leadership potential

and sometimes seemingly

poor judgment.

I attended a class this week in Chicago

that brought coaches and other professionals together

from across the country.

Randomly,

I was paired with a soft-spoken man from outside Indianapolis.

We shared stories and his, in part, included

a mention of a love of birds

and a discovery made just the morning before

of two rose-breasted grosbeaks

on the birdfeeder in his yard.

An extremely gratifying first in his 20 plus years of watching & waiting.

The rose-breasted grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus) is a large seed-eating songbird in the cardinal family (Cardinalidae). It is primarily a foliage gleaner. It breeds in cool-temperate North America, migrating to tropical America in winter.[2]

To be honest, I remembered nothing of his story,

except for the memory of his delight

at the mention of the birds

and their brilliantly colored breasts.

The very next morning,

before I left for class,

I walked my dog around the neighborhood

as I do

and happened upon

what I immediately recognized

as a rose-breasted grosbeak,

my first as well,

resting comfortably on the sidewalk

outside the Dunkin’ Donuts.

No meaning to be made here

other than the joy of random connections &

the delight of not so coincidental coincidences.

By now,

we all know

command & control style of leadership

is bad;

collaborative, empowering, inclusive

style of leadership is good.

Except I’m not so sure.

Many organizations, in

an attempt to empower leaders,

create a false sense of ownership

and decision making authority.

First question:

Do you have an advisory leadership team

or a decision making leadership team?

Acting as your internal board,

are the people you put in place

truly trained & qualified to make decisions

on your behalf?

More importantly,

are you as the owner,

willing to let them…

and live with the consequences?

Most businesses I work with

fall into two categories:

emotional and strategic.

Emotionally run companies

are too often at the effect of

the owner and his/her many moods.

Even if there is a leadership team in place,

they are all too often only able to react

to the unpredictable moods of the owner.

Good day for the owner;

Good day for the company.

Strategic leadership, however, gives

the leadership team a map to guide them.

They are able to pro-actively make decisions

based on the vision and direction of the owner.

The former happens all too often;

the later not nearly often enough.

When I look at photos from my early career days

I’m dressed remarkably like Aunt Bee

from The Andy Griffith Show.

Dumpy polyester skirt down to mid-calf.

Obligatory bowed blouse.

A once-beloved jacket that made my daughter ask

why I was wearing a bathrobe at work.

You get the idea.

These epic fashion failures were due,

in part, to the hindsight of fashion trends

and in greater part to my sorry efforts at

trying to, at least, look like a grown up.

Blessedly, this is no longer necessary or true.

A grown up – even and especially a successful one –

is as likely to show up dressed like

he’s washing his car as he is wearing a suit.

I don’t have any judgment on this,

or most fashion in general,

but I do have one rule/request:

If you wear it, own it.

If you’re an adult who doesn’t own

appropriate clothes for a holiday party,

a wedding or a funeral,

I’m a million percent okay with whatever

you show up in.

Really.

Just don’t mumble something about

“probably should have dressed up.”

Wear what you wear; don’t apologize for it.

Confidence beats bad fashion every time.

Own it. Or change it.

Me as a young copywriter.

Some where in my coaches training

I learned the following:

behind every conflict

is an unarticulated request.

I think of this often when I become

blamey and whiney and

any of the other unflattering eys.

What is it that you want

and why can’t you ask for it?

And by you, as (almost) always, I mean me.

Somewhere between keeping my mouth shut,

more or less pretending I’m okay with it,

(be it kimchi* or late cancellations or nonfrothy lattes)

and losing my sh*t over not getting what I want

is the land of asking nicely.

What is so hard about that?

I find demanding people, well, demanding.

In an effort to not be that, I too often

error on the side of not asking for what I want

and therefore not getting it.

Ever.

Or so it sometimes seems.

Or saying yes to something I should say (hell) no to

hoping the other person will respond in kind

down the road.

In my experience, that can be a pretty long road

paved with a lot of kimchi.

No more.

I’m declaring 2016

The Year of Asking Nicely.

“May I have an extra foamy latte, please,

and hold the kimchi.”

I fcking hate kimchi.

I stumbled across a

women’s career group

on LinkedIn and noticed

a thread around a woman

saying she hoped to transition

from teaching to a

career in the medical field.

“Follow your dream!”

said one woman.

“Go for it!” said another.

“You found your passion – now go for it!”

What I heard in my head was

“You go, girl!”

The well intended, but not very useful,

battle cry of women supporting women.

A decade or so ago,

I ran into my recently x-ed husband

and his even more recently acquired girlfriend.

I spit out something snarky

and turned on my heels

with two girlfriends in tow.

They high-fived me and

you go girled me all the way home.

Later that night,

I called one of my guy friends

who listened to my story

and bluntly offered this:

“You acted like a dick.

Call him and apologize.

Then apologize to the girlfriend.”

Harsh, but helpful.

I reached out to the young woman

and offered to help rewrite her resume

and LinkedIn profile (no charge) and

talk her through the challenges of

career transition.

Not because I’m so great,

but because I know that sometimes

“You go, girl!”

only goes so far.

When I was seven or eight

I took baton twirling lessons

in preparation for the 4th of July parade.

I remember polishing my Keds

and first-aid taping the ends of my baton

to sparkle whitey-white.

Roughly 50 (gasp!) years later,

I had the idea of picking up the baton again.

Not a metaphor.

Literally.

I must have mentioned this

because Tessa got me a baton for my birthday.

I was outwardly appreciative

and inwardly thrilled.

I can’t remember my gmail password,

but I can remember my entire

4th of July baton routine from 1965.

Oh, but there’s more.

I decided I needed lessons and

found Torrie Rose,

a lovely young woman and

former national competitive twirler.

At my first lesson

I got an hour of twirling instruction

and an hour of genuine affirmation.

“You’re doing great, Julie!”

“You’re so good at this!”

After that first lesson

I nearly wept in my car

over how deeply grateful

I am to be

acknowledged and affirmed

from such a pure of heart person

sharing her gift with whomever

wants to learn.

Maybe you can’t go home again

(A metaphor),

but you can twirl as long as you like.

(Not a metaphor. Well, maybe.)

There’s a (now) hilarious story

we tell in my family

about a time

when I completely lost my shit

due to unseasonably

hot weather at the

very emotional time

of moving my son into

his first college dorm room.

(Did I mention it was very hot?)

I’ve written about it

in this blog.

If you’re new here,

it went something like this…

Me: it’s HOT! I’m SO HOT! I’m DYING!

SWEAT is running down the inside of my jeans!!

I’M SO HOT!

(shouted emphatically and in near crazy tears)

Tessa: HOT! YES! It’s HOT! We’re ALL HOT.

HOT isn’t something that’s just happening to YOU.

(said forcefully, matching my volume level

and tone while maintaining steady eye contact,

squaring my shoulders in her firm grip)

Some may say I could have used

a little compassion at that moment.

But it did the trick.

And was probably consistent with

best practices in crisis training

for emotional shock.

I mention it now because

I’m often reminded

that it’s not about me.

Did I say often?

I meant too often reminded.

“It’s not about you.”

Bad service. Bad behavior.

Disappointments. Dismissals.

It’s not about me.

To be honest,

I sometimes

wish it were.

I’ve been working with

young professionals a lot lately.

Partly because that’s what I’m attracting and

partly because those clever guys

at allworkallplaypodcast.com

keep giving Hot Coffee Coaching

sweet shoutouts on their show.

If I have one message for the

post-college, 20-something crowd

who didn’t go to school to become

a fill-in-the-blank

(doctor, lawyer, accountant, engineer),

but instead went to study something you love or

at least something you didn’t hate, it’s this:

It will be okay.

You’ll be okay.

You’ll find a job.

You’ll be good at it.

You’ll make money.

I promise.

How do I know this?

Because I see your brilliance.

I’ve worked with

enough young adults to know

they already know what they want.

Sometimes they need help with the doing

(resumes, interviews, online job search decoder rings)

sometimes they need help with the being

(confidence, communication, perseverance)

Sometimes they need help

lifting the veil of doubt that is already

settling on top of their hopes and dreams.

This is where you come in.

Encourage your young adults to dream.

Listen to their ideas.

Hold up the mirror and help them

see the brilliance and the possibility

of who they are.

Then, watch what they create.

I was recently interviewed by

Adam Spunt & Dan McCarthy

for their podcast All Work All Play.

http://www.allworkallplaypodcast.com/julie-colbrese/

Instant connection.

I feel like our future is

in good hands

after talking to these guys.

High self awareness; low ego.

I can’t wait to see/hear what they

do next.

In the time it took me to cross the street,

a truck pulled up,

the driver jumped out and

slapped an $18. sticker

over the $16. sticker.

Bam!

$16. for all day parking is now $18.

This is how you raise your rates.

The next day

the parking lot was full again

and the owner made more money.

Did some parkers

leave to find a cheaper lot?

Maybe.

Did some parkers grumble

a little and park there anyway?

Likely.

Did some new parkers

come around the corner

and think $18.? Ok.

Most definitely.

This is how you make more money.

Almost without exception,

every professional client

I have coached/consulted with

could be charging more.

All but a few, wish they were.

Confidence and fear of conflict

typically gets in our way.

And definitely without exception

clients who have raised their rates

have done so without any significant

pushback or loss of clients.

Further, many of my clients’

clients and customers have not

only accepted the price increase

They’ve agreed with it.

If you’re doing an excellent job,

your clients will want to

pay you what you’re worth.

You have to believe you’re worth it first.

Then, make a new sticker.

What a thrill for Hot Coffee Coaching

to host “Your Best Shot”.

We enjoyed an evening of

connections, food & wine and the best advice in

health, wealth, relationship & career.

Here’s the skimmy on what you missed…

From wealth manager Heather Locus:

Know your number(s).

Get clear on what you have to have

and what you want to have.

It’s okay to dream a little…or a lot.

David Ainley, has learned a bit about relationships –

not only from being married 15+ years –

but from his work as a Chicago divorce attorney.

Look for parity. Sharing key values

is what keeps couples out of his office.

And speaking of health,

master trainer Cole Cruz, had this to say

about living the fit life:

Find something you can do.

Even a walk is better than nothing.

And, commit to some accountability

with a trainer or workout buddy.

You’ll be twice as likely to succeed.

Finally, Work/Life Coach, Julie Colbrese,

recalling her years of hiring,

encouraged those in career transition

to be “interested and interesting”.

Find something that lights you up;

talk about that.

And, don’t forget to ask about the other person.

Be genuinely interested and people will find you fascinating.

For more information from our panel members,

see their contact info below.

Heather Locus, CPA, CFP, CDFA,

Principal at Balasa Dinverno Foltz LLC

http://bdfllc.com

hlocus@bdfllc.com

David Ainley, Partner, Katz & Stefani LLC.

http://www.katzstefani.com

dainley@katzstefani.com

Cole Cruz, Master Trainer at Shred415, Founder of Coalition Fitness

https://www.facebook.com/colecruzfitness

colecruz3@gmail.com

Julie Colbrese, CPCC/PCC, Founder Hot Coffee Coaching LLC

Home

julie@hotcoffeecoaching.com

Special thank you to:

Thomas Interiors (http://www.thomasinterior.com) for providing their epic work (and event) space.

Adriana Marzullo (http://www.zullosinc.com) for beautiful & delicious catering. Visit her @ The Green City Market

Lynn Renee Photography (http://www.lynnreneephoto.com) for making us all look so good.

I was recently interviewed on how coaching can help women discover their “next act”. Read the interview http://nextactforwomen.com/coaching-and-counseling/lets-hear-from-an-expert-julie-colbrese-hot-coffee-coaching/#more-4083 and start thinking about your own next act. Everybody has a “what’s next”. What’s yours?

If you’re a friend,

follower of my blog

or even a casual acquaintance,

you know I’m a regular

workouter.

Every workout session

starts with a warm up

on the rowing machine.

The display setting we use

on the rower says:

“Just Row”.

This is, perhaps,

the most calming

part of my day,

of any day.

Just row.

It’s the most welcome

re-assuring affirmation.

For those ten minutes

I am exactly where I am

supposed to be and

there are no expectations of me

beyond to…

just row.

Yet, I wouldn’t be

the coach I am

If I didn’t see the

metaphor in that

simple digital display.

In what ways does

it apply to life?

To work?

To love?

In what ways could

the simplicity and rhythm

of just rowing

moving us forward

smoothly and skillfully

without making metaphorical waves?

How often do we allow

ourselves to be where we are,

fully present with no thoughts

and no expectations as to

where we are coming from or

where we are going.

Just row.

And know that,

even though the rower

keeps me firmly in one place,

with the ripple of each muscular pull,

I am moving forward

stronger and more sure.

I was in New Orleans recently.

Upon my return, people asked

“Did you have fun?”

I’m sure they meant

“Lift your top &

show us your t*ts”

kinda fun.

I didn’t.

But I did have fun.

Every day I walked

to Café du Monde

and had café au lait

and beignets.

So. Much. Fun.

Over time,

fun gets quieter

in a way that makes

it sometimes hard

to notice.

It reminds me of Quoyle,

in The Shipping News,

one of the most beautiful books

I’ve ever read

and played by Kevin Spacey

in the pretty good movie version

After a miserable life

married to the alcoholic &

abusive Petal,

Quoyle doesn’t recognize

his relationship with Wavey

as love because it doesn’t hurt.

It’s not painful or dramatic.

Just good.

Same for fun.

Quiet fun sometimes

goes unnoticed.

A great conversation.

An interesting read.

A really good coffee.

It doesn’t matter if you’re alone

(and, in truth, we’re always alone

even and perhaps especially

when we’re with others)

or with someone you care about

or in a crowd,

any engagement in an activity

you enjoy,

no matter how loud

or not,

totally counts as fun.

You get to decide.

Tops optional.

My kids loved camp.

L-o-v-e loved it.

They started out as campers

and ended as counselors and program directors

nearly a decade later.

Somewhere around sophomore year in college

Tessa decided

it was time to break up with camp.

Ben got there a few years later.

Bittersweet for both,

but time.

The same is true for any relationship –

friends, school, homes, jobs, lovers.

The time to leave is when it’s bittersweet.

If you stay beyond bittersweet,

you’ve stayed too long.

I still have fond memories of all

but one job

I’ve ever had.

The one that lodges dark in my mind

with only bitter anger and disappointment

is because I stayed well beyond

when good sense

and integrity should have told me to leave.

And that was just after a year.

I had my reasons,

(money)

but even that should have had

me make a move sooner.

Similarly, I’ve stayed friends

with most of the men I’ve dated

mainly because one of us

had the presence of mind

to leave

while we could still see –

if we squeezed our eyes tight–

the person we fell in love with

on the other side of the table.

Bitter, but oh so sweet.

I am the least risky person I know.

I have intentionally arranged my life

to mitigate risk

related to my

health, safety and happiness.

No jumping out, off or over things.

No going fast on, in or on top of things.

Minimal karaoke solos.

Yet, I have had my moments of courageous risk-taking.

Single parenting comes to mind.

Ditto leaving a well paying career

to start my own coaching practice.

(A life coach? Really?)

Falling in love again and again and again.

So it is with profound

self management

that I coach my clients through

their own versions of

risky –but not reckless — behavior.

What I’ve learned is

one man’s risk

is another man’s recreation.

Said another way:

the change that’s relatively easy

for one to make,

may be paralyzing for another.

But safe is small.

And, I don’t intend to

spend my time living a small life.

Or, letting those I care about

live theirs in anything less

than the biggest version of

who they are.

So, gather all the courage

you have and,

if you’re a little wiggly

on what’s next,

get you to a coach

who is your champion

for that big bold

life of yours.

If you find yourself

with a death grip

on your current life –

be it a job,

a relationship,

or other complex situation –

consider perhaps:

the life you have

is the life you want.

Let that sit for

a minute.

In what ways is

“I want something

more, better, different”

a lie you’re telling

yourself

(and probably a lot

of other people too).

 “People don’t really want

to be cured.

What they want is relief;

a cure is painful.”*

I’ve had clients come to me,

seemingly desperate to

change some aspect of their life,

then wrestle me to the mat

in support of staying

right. where. they. are.

If this sounds like you,

and you’re in that place

of being unwilling or unable

(same dif)

to create the change needed

for change-your-life change,

you may want to

get more comfortable

with being uncomfortable.

If you’re saying “I want…”

but you’re stuck in

“I can’t…”

can’t is gonna win it.

Change can be painful.

And, if you’re not

up for that discomfort,

there’s a good chance

what you want

is what you already have.

Even with all its faults,

imperfections and disappointments.

No judgment.

So, there you are;

right where you are.

* from Awareness: The Perils  and Opportunities of Reality

by Anthony DeMello

Every Saturday

from Memorial Day to Labor Day

and then some,

I wake up.

Walk Figgy Pudding.

Get coffee.

Go to yoga.

And walk through the Green City Market

in Lincoln Park.

To do this,

I navigate the back roads of the West Loop

to avoid a particularly potholed

and unappealing stretch of Halsted.

I’ve gone this route for two summers now.

Last Saturday, thanks to the construction on the

new Google building

(Welcome Google — but your

lengthy and unpredictable

construction project is inconveniencing me),

Carpenter was closed

forcing me to

cut over Lake to Halsted.

There, to my surprise,

is an official outpost of the Green City Market.

Right. In. My. Neighborhood.

Similarly,

A recent failed taxi ride with a

driver who didn’t understand the

simplest of directions

(Take me to the precious coffee shop in the historic building

with the name I can’t pronounce.

And step on it!)

accidentally landed me at

Dollop,

a great coffee shop owned by

my coffee crush Phil Tadros

just a block away from the Intelligentsia

Brian Cahill and I frequently — and reluctantly — meet.

The probing question

(and you knew there would be one) is:

In what ways are you

“Avoiding Halsted?”

In John Green’s young adult novel

The Fault In Our Stars,

the main character, Hazel,

says of her boyfriend:

“I fell in love the way you fall asleep:

slowly, and then all at once.”

Surrender.

The giving over of whatever –

love or sleep or loss –

we have tried mightily to control.

In my darkest hours

of which there have been

blessedly few,

I default to

my loosely Christian-y:

“Thy will be done.”

I surrender –

to whatever god or fate

or energetic force –

will take it from here.

To surrender is to give up

not in failure

rather in triumphant acceptance

of the self-deception of knowing.

You will not know.

You cannot know.

Knowing is highly overrated.

To know would be to be in control

of all the moving parts and people.

And sadly, we are not.

Loosening your grip on that

which you cannot know or control

can be painfully difficult.

In truth, some people

choose to spend their whole life

with a death grip around something

or someone that isn’t even theirs to hold.

If I’m talking to you

(and by you I mean me)

Try this:

In breath: I

Out breath: surrender

Repeat.

Release.

Surrender.

I’m not one to give advice but…

please get a calendar. And use it.

Paper or electronic,

wall size or pocket size – doesn’t matter.

Just please get a calendar. And use it.

I offer this invitation frequently.

And get taken up on it rarely.

Yet, for friends, clients

and colleagues

who get on-board with

pro-actively managing their calendar

it has been life changing.

There’s a good chance

the reason you are

overwhelmed,

stressed out

and exhausted

is because you are at the effect

of everyone else’s schedule.

Own your own time.

Claim it like it’s your bitch.

Make it work for you.

Block out time first for the

people and activities

that matter most to you.

Want to read a book?

Book some time with yourself.

Want to workout?

Exercise your right to flex calendar muscle.

Want to meet a friend?

Get friendly with Outlook.

I am obsessed with calendaring.

Mine’s color-coded around the

things that matter most to me:

Family/Friends.

Coaching.

Workouts.

Room to breathe.

At a glance,

I can see how I’m doing at

dedicating time to the things I love most.

My calendar comforts me.

Keeping me forward-focused and on task

day by day, hour by hour.

If you follow my blog

regularly or recently

you’ve been introduced

to Figgy Pudding,

my nose-breaking-black eye making

72-pound chocolate lab mix.

As a puppy,

Figgy did time at

obedience classes,

private trainings

doggie boot camps

in my feeble attempt

to tame him into an

acceptable roommate.

The only one who had

even marginal success

with Figgy

was a trainer named Rachel.

For each behavior infraction

Rachel would reprimand

Figgy with a dissapproving:

“NOT FOR FIGGY!”

I like this because

it implied that Figgy’s behavior —

be it chewing a hole in a

cashmere sweater,

peeing on the duvet cover or

eating a bottle of thyroid medication —

was not wrong, exactly

just not for Figgy.

Her words implied choice

and the feeling that somehow

we all had higher expectations

of Figgy’s behavior.

And he should too.

Since Figgy is mostly trained now,

again I believe by his choice,

I’ve taken to using this command on myself.

NOT FOR JULIE!

I admonish myself under my breath.

Be it a scone I don’t need

a friendship that’s not serving me

or a habit I can’t seem to break.

It’s not wrong or bad,

It’s just not for Julie.

Good girl.

One of the bittersweet joys

of 20 plus years as a single parent

is being told by my kids

that I’m the

“best dad they know.”

I get Mother’s Day and Father’s Day

acknowledgement.

Both kids, on various & mulitple occasions,

marvel at me in an

I-don’t-know-how-you-did-it way.

Me either.

Except in some ways single parenting

seems easier.

No one to discuss discipline styles.

No one to play good cop/bad cop.

No one to challenge the

hundreds and thousands

of decisions

it takes to get a child

safely, healthy and happy

(and, in my house, happy was optional)

to launch.

Single parenting certainly streamlined the process.

But it wasn’t nearly as joyful as

I imagine parenting with a

(mostly) like-minded partner

could be.

I remember overhearing my

then grade-school son talking

with his friends –

wildy coincidently – all being raised

by divorced or widowed moms.

“Dads. Who needs them?”

said one particularly jaded boy.

Don’t get me wrong:

I’m pro-dads.

(Especially the single, age-appropriate ones. Grrr.)

But, I’m even more pro-parents.

Kids need parents. Good ones.

So, “Happy Father’s Day” to me

and all the other men & women

who are making good parenting

a life-long priority.

Let’s have a beer.

I will be shocked if anyone reads beyond

the title of this blog post.

I make this assumption because,

for six plus years,

people have asked me how I started

my coaching practice.

I always give some version of the

same response:

First: make 800 cold calls.

That and 20 years in marketing.

(Or, as Barry Newstat says:

step one: find a time machine;

step two: use it to go back

28 years and start making furniture)

In six plus years

not one person has asked

a follow up question to my step one.

Instead, they dust past it and ask

Uh-huh, what else?

What they really mean is:

what’s the easy way to get clients?

I made 800 cold calls

not because it was the

right way or the only way.

I made cold calls

because I was committed to building my practice.

Cold calling wasn’t particularly successful,

(800 calls, 8 or 10 meetings, 2 or 3 clients)

but it did make me absolutely fearless.

Turns out, committed and fearless

are pretty good qualities for building a business.

I often meet other service providers

who boast about never making cold calls.

I always have the same thought:

maybe you should.

It’s Mother’s Day

and I would like to

take this opportunity

to honor my…

personal trainer.

When I met Cole

I gave him the same

message I gave my hair guy:

I love being a mom;

I don’t want to look like one.

In spite of being old enough

to be Cole’s mother,

he has never treated me like

the middle-aged mom I am.

He works me hard,

generally ignores my

fairly regular bitching

and swears (slightly) more than I do.

What’s not to f-ing love about that?

The banter is lively.

The workouts are solid

(damn that Kettlebell).

And I have

dramatically reduced

my body fat.

Did I mention I’ve got “guns”?

In two years,

Cole has never missed

a workout,

shown up late

or demonstrated anything

less than a million percent

commitment to helping me

reach my goals.

I wish I could say I

have been equally on point

but truth is

I struggle mightily

with staying on the

health & fitness wagon.

What I see in Cole

is a man who is living

his values and, with that,

comes an ease that is

evident in how he approaches

work & life.

And that is very healthy, indeed.

I know hundred of coaches.

Yet, it wasn’t until I met

Brian Cahill and Morgen Ruth

than I thought about expanding

my coaching practice.

How I met Brian is a longer

story than my self-imposed

200-word blog post limit will allow,

but suffice to say

Brian found me

and I claimed him.

Brian says after our first meeting

he told his wife, Susan,

“I’m going to work with that

woman.”

How’s that for setting an intention?

So began a multi-year friendship

of coaching, drinking coffee,

being coached and

sort of coaching

and drinking wine and

good enough coaching™,

and laughing. A lot.

Brian is to wine what I am to coffee.

So when he hosted a

Wine & Coaching Event,

naturally, I was there.

So was Morgen Ruth.

(See how this is all coming together?)

After the event — just as

Bob Dylan said about Alicia Keys —

I said about Morgen:

“There’s nothing about that

girl I don’t like.”

Morgen’s got range.

And she can definitely hold her own

in the coaching/wine drinking/

coffee drinking/laughing. A lot.

categories.

So now,

we’re getting all co-active together

(Thanks, CTI!)

doing good work, having good fun

and planning our own “what’s next?”

I’m a strong, smart woman.

And, no amount of

strength or smarts

prepared me for a head-on

with my 65 lb. lab/pit bull

requiring an ER visit

(for me; dog was fine)

resulting in a broken nose

and two black eyes.

(again, me; dog was fine)

I’m strong,

but I’m not a cage fighter.

And, I’m smart.

But when three ER docs asked

“Have you had a tetanus shot?”

I only had two thoughts:

 1. Ever?

2. And: well, I seem to remember

looking on while my brother got

a rusty garden tool

removed from his ankle in 1963,

but that doesn’t really

answer the question, does it?

Followed by my inability to

answer whether I would like

to be referred to

a plastic surgeon or an ENT.

Even with the ER doc asking

repeatedly and slowly,

I couldn’t form my follow up

which was:

Huh?

Until, mercifully, she

gave me both.

So, here’s a tip about

strong, smart woman.

We’re not always so strong

and we’re sometimes not so smart.

We like a little

attention & tenderness

and the occasional  help

with life’s hard questions.

Later my coffee guy

saw my face and

comped my latte.

I almost wept.

Acknowledgment is actually

a learned coaching skill.

Why?

Because we get so precious

little of it in life.

We are starved to our core

for a crumb of gratitude.

Research indicates

employees would rather

be criticized than ignored.

A fact that I make up, while

likely true, comes from the

sad assumption that

“complimented”, “praised”

or “acknowledged”

wasn’t among the

consideration set of

those surveyed.

To illustrate:

I bought a doughnut at

Stan’s Donuts

(Allow me to compliment

Stan on his doughnuts: outSTANding.).

When the counter person

took my money,

the following dialogue ensued:

Manager: Say ‘thank you’.

Counter Person: What?

Manger: Say ‘thank you’.

You should always say

‘thank you’ when you take

someone’s money.

Counter Person: Oh.

Thank you. It’s my first day.

On the planet?!?

I wanted to ask.

How is it possible that

a human being escaped knowing

this very basic exchange?

The acknowledgment

that should transpire

when money is exchanged for goods

is Gratitude 101.

Unless it’s a hold-up,

there is no acceptable alternative

for ‘thank you’ when money

and goods change hands.

It should be as reflexive

as the blessing of your choosing

after a sneeze.

Or “you’re welcome” after

that obligatory thank you.

I like to credit much of my

early education

to Milton-Bradley.

While other families were

building their real estate empires

via Monopoly,

my family favored

The Game of Life

and, a Milton-Bradley sleeper, Careers.

It’s no accident,

I suppose,

that I learned early on via

The Game of Life

that college was a

whimsical optional detour.

What really mattered

was getting that blue peg

in the driver’s seat

and then getting busy

filling the car with kids

until they were literally

piled in the aisle.

Life has a way of taking

twists and turns and

I often ended up in

Careers.

A b-player in the board game category that,

way ahead of its time,

had players weigh & articulate values of

fame, fortune and love.

I tried many strategies during

those gameathons:

All love!

All money!

All fame!

Equal balance of each!

Recently, in creating a

business plan for my

coaching practice

I drew three interlocking circles:

Work I love.

Work that pays well.

High-profile work.

Notice anything?

Love. Fortune. Fame.

That sweet spot –

getting paid to do work I love

and being acknowledged for it –

is what makes me happy.

And happy wins the game

of Life every time.

Research I read – and then spent the next decade

beating into my young daughter’s head –

said that somewhere

between 8 and 10 years old

girls go from

confidently expressing their opinion:

“I want pepperoni pizza!”

to neutralizing their opinion:

“I don’t care”

to completely giving away their power:

“whatever you want”.

Even with this knowledge,

I continue to perfect this in

subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

As soon as I give in to

“whatever you want”

the ticking time bomb of

resentment and self loathing begins.

Then it’s just a matter of time before

I explode

and you get the metaphorical

pizza shoved in your face.

When we give away our power

it’s an act of self-betrayal.

This pattern can be difficult to break

as the groves quickly deepen

and we go unconscious

in our need/desire to be

loved

accommodating

loved

laid back

loved

As a former boss was fond of saying:

bother to have an opinion.

Ouch.

And I will add

bother to have an opinion

and a preference.

Voice it.

Retrain yourself to

start sentences with

“I want…”

“I prefer…”

Use your words and

you may be surprised to find

you get the pizza you want…

and then some.

P.S. Do not order pizza with Tessa. You will lose. Unless you are Ben. Then we will all (happily) have sushi.

This New Year’s thing

seems like a good time to

re-emphasize my love of

ritual.

I take uncanny delight in the

ritual of my morning latte,

walking my dog

(most non-subzero mornings)

and working out three days

a week with my trainer*.

Instead of a daunting

“To Do” list of

New Year’s Resolutions

or even worse

a list of what NOT to do:

DON’T eat French Fries,

STOP drinking dinner,

NO MORE sex with strangers

(I didn’t say this was my list, by the way),

why not use the new year

to create new rituals.

Creating rituals is good,

life-affirming fun.

Like a morning ritual of

life-affirming choices:

coffee, meditation, exercise,

healthy breakfast and/or a purely

indulgent hour of pleasure reading.

Or a new ritual of reserving every

Friday lunch for reconnecting

with a different friend with whom

you’ve lost touch.

Or a new ritual of intentionally

moving a sum of money –however small –

from checking to savings

on the first of every month.

Rituals honor who you are and what you value.

They pay dividends in their ability to

affirm your good decision making and

your commitment to living

a life in support of your values.

Rituals are cool.

* shameless plug for my awesome trainer: https://www.facebook.com/colecruzfitness

I’m not as funny as I used to be.

And I’m okay with that.

By funny, I mean

Witty. Clever, Quick.

I put a high value on wit;

not so much on “funny”.

Even so,

I’m not as all that as I used to be.

And for good reason.

I used to be the gunslinger

of witty (& oft times) withering comments.

Part of my leadership training

taught me things I never knew about

my preferred brand of humor.

Recently I watched a leader

stand in his power with insightful

comments…

…and then throw it all away with a joke.

Every. Single. Time.

Entertaining? Yes; Effective? No.

Another colleague’s

humor fell just shy of

passive aggressive abuse:

biting sarcasm,

followed immediately by a purred

“you-know-I-love-you.”

It was like being in the room

with a beautiful, coiled snake.

No wonder everyone on this team is tense.

My training taught me

humor is a gift and a skill

that has to be thoughtfully managed.

A friend reminded me

It’s okay to turn down an opportunity.

“You don’t have to have all the money,”

he said.

True of humor, as well.

I don’t have to have all the laughs.

Just the right ones.

I am an expert at purging.

Not the throwing up kind

of purging,

the kind where you systematically

go through your stuff and

eliminate unwanted items.

I love it.

It occurs to me that I favor

what I have come to call

a well-curated life.

The work I have done –

and continue to do –

in coaching and leadership

is about living a life of

intention.

With that, I want my life

on the outside to reflect

what I am practicing

on the inside.

Clarity. Purpose. Intention.

That means, the car I drive,

the clothes I wear and the

things I own are intentional

and intentionally in my life.

When I look around my home

I want to see only those things

that are life affirming,

beautiful-to-me things

that I have selected

that have purpose

and meaning in my life.

The same is true for

people and places.

I want to be interested in &

interesting to the people

with whom I choose

to be in relationship with.

And I want to be inspired

by the places I choose

to spend my time.

Clarity. Purpose. Intention.

It’s what guides me to living

a well-curated life.

As you may know,

my work travels in trends.

Issues build, crest & crash

through my client roster

like so many waves.

One month, we’re all

considering sabbaticals.

Last month,

every child on the planet

left for college

and every parent collectively wondered

“what now?”

This month, I’m captivated

by a theme I’m responding to

with a battle cry I’m calling

“playing the long game”.

As a people, we are impatient.

We want change & we want it now.

And, preferably in a short, straight line.

In my experience,

life seldom happens that way.

Instead, you have to

play the long game.

And, before you tell me you’re

too old and too tired for

the long game,

You’re not.

Everyone — regardless of age —

has a long game left in him/her.

That means the best next move

may not be The Thing.

It may be the thing that gets you

One. Step. Closer.

to The Thing.

Point yourself to your

most compelling dream

and make your move.

That forward movement

may be so small only

you know you’re taking it.

Or so quiet only you hear it.

Take it or make it anyway.

You’ll know.

You’re on your way.

I love men.

Especially the kind of man

who is trying hard to be the best

husband, father, boss, friend

he can be.

I love men.

Oh, don’t get me wrong.

I love women too.

But, we women have been

working at self-improvement

ever since the first issue of

Calling All Girls

(which later became Young Miss

and then, even cooler, YM).

I can’t help but fall in love

with my male clients who

seek out coaching –

not for themselves necessarily –

but for the

relationships

in their lives

because they truly want

to be better

husbands

fathers

bosses

friends.

And just don’t know how.

I fall in love with them

because I understand them.

I understand that they are trying

and sometimes (often) failing.

And, my heart breaks

not just for them

but for the women in their lives

who silently

and

sometimes not so silently

want them to be

better, happier,

more engaged

versions of themselves

(P.S. they want this too)

and feel guilty for feeling

disappointed by all the ways

their man can’t or won’t

(does it matter?)

just get it together

and love them back.

To notice that

They.

Are.

Trying.

Really. They’re trying.

I love men.

Quite by accident,

I developed a rather specific

niche in my coaching practice.

Many – but not all –

(lest you are a client

wondering if I’m talking about you.

I’m not…unless I am)

of my clients

have been labeled “difficult”

by their employers.

See also:

harsh, condescending, critical,

judgmental, righteous, controlling,

ego-driven and more than one

unkind reference to

The Devil Wore Prada.

In contrast, my clients self describe as:

passionate, dedicated, perfectionists

with extremely high standards,

who are woefully misunderstood.

And, guess what?

Employer and employee

are both right.

Because it’s not the truth;

It’s perspective, baby.

As a recovering difficult person,

I have deep empathy for these clients.

No one hungers to be understood

more than I do.

(did I mention a flair for the dramatic

as one of the early warning signs?)

Through coaching,

individuals can learn

the difference between truth & perspective,

gain new tools for effective

communication

and begin to slow down

response time to allow for

more thoughtful interactions.

If you suspect you may be

difficult,

get ye to a good coach.

If you work with or love someone

whom you find difficult,

feel free to leave this blog post

where he/she will see it.

When I was 21 or 22,

my boyfriend was diagnosed on a Friday

with stage three Hodgkin’s disease.

On Monday he would start chemotherapy.

And, by the way,

“you’ll probably never be able to have children.”

My immediate thought was:

who needs kids?

Which was, I learned, more of an epiphany

about my as yet undeclared love for Jim

than it was an opinion about parenting.

We got married and had kids.

One of those kids, Tessa,

is getting married today.

She’s a beauty all right.

Smart too.

And funny.

Patrick is a perfect match.

They complement one other.

Patrick’s grandfather told me

when Patrick’s great grandfather

met Tessa for the first time

He said,

“She’s the one.”

And, while Tessa decided

great grandfather was

too old for her.

And already married.

Patrick was just right.

So, today they begin

their married life together.

Tessa’s brother Ben will

walk her down the aisle.

And “give her away.”

As much as she is

any of ours to give away.

Time flies, as they say,

and life has some crazy

twists & turns along the way.

You love as much as you can

for as long as you can.

Then, let go.

Tessa & Patrick

July 6, 2013

fear I only have a couple topics

swirling around my blog-head

that keep re-presenting themselves in various forms.

If that is the case, and you’ve heard

this one from me before, my apologizes.

“Good bye” and “No, thank you”.

Two phrases people seem

to struggle with lately.

I have recently had two long time clients

disappear without a trace.

And a couple friends vaporize

nearly as cleanly.

Judging by the conversations

I’m having, this isn’t just me.

Unanswered correspondence –

whether text, email or phone –

seems to be the new way of

saying good bye, I’ve left,

I’m not interested, no thank you.

It used to make me mad;

now it makes me sad.

Sad that these people don’t

realize what they mean to an

individual or a group.

Your absence is noticed and missed.

And, sad that some people lack

the grace to say

“Good bye”

and the confidence to say

“No, thank you”

when an opportunity

or invitation or relationship

is not to their liking.

I have a colleague who is known

to enthusiastically say

“We should talk about that!”

When what she really means is

“I’m not interested in that.”

It makes me laugh,

But not really.

I worked w/ an agency executive

who dressed like he was on his way to a

Harley-Davidson rally.

No matter if he was sitting across

from the Kraft cheese lady or

the Kool cigarette dude, this

guy wore what he wore.

And, he never apologized for it.

Wear what you want —

jeans, a kilt, a wet suit.

I don’t care.

But, don’t apologize for it.

Rock it.

Or, change it.

Before you leave the house.

Someone recently — and

somewhat exasperatedly — claimed,

that I am never satisfied.

It was not a compliment,

although I would like to think it could be.

I don’t want to be satisfied.

I want to be inspired.

Don Draper,

the creative director I wish I

had been – even the pretend one

he is –was given this to say in

a recent Mad Men episode:

“You’re happy because you’re successful.

For now.

But what is happiness?

It’s a moment before you need more happiness.”

Damn that Don Draper.

Happiness. Success. Satisfaction.

Perfect. Until you need – and want – more.

Many of my business owner clients

say they don’t want to grow their business.

They like it this size

and want to keep it that way.

Good luck with that.

Staying in one place is far more

difficult than moving in either direction.

Just try treading water.

Not a metaphor. Literally.

Treading water is far more exhausting,

mentally and physically, than swimming

and infinitely more challenging than drowning.

(Although, I’m making an assumption

on that last part.)

Being inspired to want

shouldn’t be a bad thing, should it?

In fact, it is the absence of want

that sounds desperately sad to me.

I pretty much love everything

about coaching.

Except….

the too often irresponsible

use of “owning it”.

In coaching, we sometimes

encourage our clients

to “own” their behavior.

Good or bad,

positive or negative.

Landed a sweet promotion?

Don’t be shy—own it, baby!

Screwed up w/ your girlfriend?

Own it, dude.

Call her back and apologize.

It’s a useful way to encourage

people to take ownership and

responsibility for their

behavior and feelings.

My problem is when

owning it

becomes a substitute for

stopping it.

“I own that.”

is too often the

get-out-of-jail-free card

that is played whenever someone is

called on his/her shit.

Awareness is indeed the first step to change.

But it’s only the first step.

And, claiming to “own” your faults

gets you little credit until you actually

move toward changing the offending behavior.

As human beings,

we don’t expect each other to be perfect.

But we do make the assumption that

once we’ve declared our shortcomings–

be it chronic tardiness, selfishness,

know-it-alls, control freaks

relentless interrupters, temper losers,

gossips, bossy mcbossys

(see also control freaks), perfectionist

lazy asses or assistant drivers —

we’re all working hard to

move toward

not just owning it

but taming it.

One reason I joined a running group

is for the community.

Working alone and living alone

can sometimes equal lonely.

I have to be intentional

about connecting with people.

We’re natural pack animals.

Without a “real” job to go to,

I miss my pack.

One place I found it is through running.

One thing I love about group running

on Chicago’s beautiful –

albeit frozen right now – lakefront path

is the community of runners.

If you’re a runner you know

runners greet runners.

“Good morning, runners!”

There are mornings when

I tear up over this simple greeting

because it’s so

genuine and affirming.

When I was in college I noticed

the campus bus drivers

all nodded to each other.

I thought it was weird that they knew each other.

Until I realized they were part of a

community of bus drivers who were saying:

I see you. I’m one of you. We belong to each other.

Bus drivers. Taxi drivers. Runners.

All in community.

I get the nod from fellow Volvo owners.

“How do you like your car?” a Volvo C30 guy

said to me at the gas pump.

“I love it!” I said.

“Me too.”

That was it. And enough.

A lot of coaching and

personal work in general

involves letting go of the

past and future in favor of

living in the present.

It’s a useful practice.

Especially for those of us

who are holding on to

past relationships,

past successes.

past failures.

The “not unhappys” I call them.

I often help clients get present to

diffuse feelings of overwhelm.

When you are truly in the present,

fully engaged in the right now,

everything else falls away and

you can find a certain

focus and clarity

in where you are.

That’s good.

At the same time, I wonder

if too much living in the present

is a seemingly safe place to hide

from the unknown future.

In what ways does “being present”

rob us and those around us from

the opportunity to dream and design

a future alone or together.

Be present, yes and

point yourself to the future.

Future opportunities.

Future relationships.

Future successes and failures.

Because forward is where the

present is headed and you’re

going to want to go with it.

And for me, I want to go –

not pumping the brakes –

to keep me safely where I am,

but with my feet off the pedals.

Resolutions are dumb.

Unless they are deeply,

emotionally connected

to your clearly articulated values

and unless you are

fully committed and

laser-focused on

what specific action to take

(or not to take) next.

Then, they are liberating

and exhilarating and

more war cry than resolute.

What if this were the year.

What if this were the year

you dug deep and made

a change that really mattered

to yourself

your family,

your community 

even the world?!?

What if this were the year

you went from lamely

mumbling some half-hearted

promise to

lose 10 pounds

stop picking your cuticles

or learn French.

(all mine)

And instead used this

opportunity to

stand in your full power

and make a declaration

that truly matters.

Who can you enroll

to be your Champion?

What resources –

human or otherwise –

do you need to ensure

your success?

Who will be at your side

when the road gets wobbly?

Plan for (near) failure now

and be equally prepared to

celebrate your success.

Get your “Woo Hoo!” ready.

There’s nothing special about

January 1st for starting

or starting over.

Press the “reset”

button whenever you like.

Make a plan; work the plan.

Make it a year that matters.

I’m moving in January.

With this move, I believe,

I will officially become a person

who moves a lot.

Five moves in 20 years.

Is that a lot?

With each move,

I’ve bought further south

(nothing dramatic—still in the same

coffee/grocery/yoga zipcode)

and into smaller spaces.

One more move and I’ll disappear

along the Dan Ryan.

I like to move.

I like to use up a space and move on.

If there’s one thing I know about myself,

it’s that I know when I’m

Done. Done. Done.

And, it’s time to move.

Literally or metaphorically.

Doesn’t matter.

Part of the ritual of moving,

you may recall,

is “touching everything I own”.

I like nice things, but not a lot of them.

So, part of the moving ritual is

consciously, intentionally

accessing and inviting the things in my life

to stay in my life.

Or, politing. lovingly arranging

for their own moving on.

I have things—random cookware,

clothing accessories, office paperwork—

that don’t detract from my current space,

but don’t need to be part of my life moving forward.

The process lets me land in my new space

lighter, clearer and ready to begin again.

A friend of mine commented

that he didn’t want any rituals in his life.

I clarified that what I though he meant was

he didn’t want any routinein his life.

Routine, in my definition, is ritual gone bad.

Routine is the daily commute,

the obligatory Sunday dinner,

monthly heartworm & tick prevention for the dog.

Rituals, on the other hand, are mini-celebrations.

Holiday cookie baking,

all-family touch football games,

summers at the beach.

I have a daily ritual of getting coffee.

Not making coffee, procuring coffee.

I have ritualized the discovery

and enjoyment of coffee shop coffee.

Similarly, I have developed a ritual

around walking my dog.

So much so that while my dog

is away at doggie boot camp

I have taken to walking myself

to preserve the ritual.

According to happiness expert, Dr. Ben-Sharah:

“The most creative individuals

whether artists, businesspeople,

or parents (yay for creative parenting!)

have rituals that they follow.

Paradoxically, the ritual frees them up

to be creative and spontaneous.”

Agreed.

Creativity happens when we feel safe

to push boundaries and explore the unknown.

The comfort and familiarity of a beloved

ritual provides that much-needed grounding

and the opportunity to

reconnect, reset and re-create.

I hate Halloween.

And, really,

costuming of any kind.

I’m not sure why—

I was a “drama kid” in high school.

A new insight came into this

while vacationing in France.

At the last dinner of the last day

of a 10-day Rhone River cruise

with clients & spouses,

the cruise director announced

he had a special treat for us!

The lights dimmed, the music swelled

and the entire cruise staff came marching

through the dining room

waving sparklers over

equally flaming trays of baked Alaska.

Everyone clapped as they took

not one! not two! but three!

laps around the dining room.

One of my clients, good naturedly clapping along 

leaned over and said:

“it’s nice, but I don’t need to be reminded I’m having fun.”

Exactly.

That’s EXACTLY what I don’t like about Halloween.

And New Year’s Eve.

Too many people trying too hard to prove

to themselves and everyone else

they’re having fun.

Now, if sparklers and costumes are your thing,

by all means…

I’m a simple girl.

A coffee. A glass of wine. A beer.

Food that isn’t fussy.

Good and witty conversation I can hear over whatever

moderately appealing visual surrounding I find myself in.

Heaven.

Patience is not my virtue of choice.

Most conversations, movies and

lines of any kind

are too long.

To this point,

lately, I’ve been noticing

the arc of anticipation.

I’m going to France today.

It’s a sort of business trip that has been

planned for two years.

For me, that arc ended

about 18 months ago.

Since then, I’ve grown tired of

people asking about it,

tired of talking about it

and especially tired of

thinking of my life

in terms of when I get back.

Or, as Barry says, “afta”.

As in: Afta my trip…

…I’ll get my dog trained,

…get serious about my workouts,

…start thinking about my upcoming move.

(another arc that has overstayed its welcome)

There’s a sweet spot in there—

some where between instant gratification

and never mind—

that I would like to try harder to hit.

My friend avoids eHarmony

for the same reason.

Their exhaustive vetting process,

she says, kills anticipation.

I like having plans.

I like knowing what I’m doing

next weekend.

But, that’s about it.

The trip will be great.

Lots to look forward to.

And the best part is,

I’m already looking forward—

with appropriately timed anticipation—

to returning home.

Under normal circumstances,

I am not lacking in self-confidence.

Except for when the phone rings.

When I see a call come in,

I never think

“Hmm, wonder who that is?”

It’s more along the lines of

 “What now?”

My assumption is always that I’ve done

something wrong.

Kind of like when I see a police officer

and think,

“Am I drunk?”

“Did I just steal something?”

When the phone rings

I get busy imaging

the client who can no longer work with me,

the man who no longer wants to date me

or the Federales who have stolen my children

and are demanding payment.

Why do I expect the worst?

Looking to popular culture as I often do,

I am reminded of the Soprano’s episode

where one-legged mistress, Svetlana Kirilenko,

(thanks, Wikipedia!)

tells a depressed Tony:

“That’s the trouble with you Americans,

you expect nothing bad to ever happen

when the rest of the world expect only

bad to happen. And they’re not disappointed.”

Followed by the next line, clearly the best line:

“You have too much time to think about yourself.”

My reaction, it seems, is just

good ol’ American self-absorption

combined with a hip Euro dark side.

Cool.

I’ve written a children’s book in my head

called “The Land of EitherOr” (TM)

(I’m officially trademarking the concept here)

Kind of an edutaining, co-active coaching primer.

My book will, hopefully,

discourage children from growing up

to be adults who steadfastly

believe that life is a series of choices between

exactly two undesirable options.

In The Land of EitherOr (TM)

there are exactly

two favors of ice cream,

two kinds of pizza,

two options for pets: dog or cat…

Then something wonderful happens

(I don’t know what but I’m pretty sure

it doesn’t involve any super powers or

hallucinatory drugs)

and the world of possibility opens.

Suddenly, the children are able to see life

in all its abundance with delicious choices

hanging from each tree,

well within their reach

and theirs for the picking.

In The Land of EitherOr (TM)

the children reject the “truth” that

choices are limited to two.

They simply refuse to believe 

and instead expand their choices

to create colorful and complex options.

Soon, the grown ups reject the soul crushing

limitation of The Land of EitherOr (TM)

and set off for multi-hued skies and long views.

A fairy tale to be sure,

but a good one.

Back when I used the words

“marathon runner” to describe myself, 

I sought the counsel of my

friend Matthew to improve my time.

Instead of giving me speed work

he told me I had to get

“comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

I wasn’t doing anything specifically wrong.

What I was doing, most notably, was

wussing out

when running “didn’t feel good”.

Discomfort is different from pain.

Pain I can do.

Natural childbirth. Twice.

But when it comes to discomfort,

physical or emotional,

we all can be pretty weak.

I am a regular witness to clients and others

who would rather suffer in stewy silence

than have a conversation that,

if not life-changing, is surely life enhancing—

if only for the head space it clears.

I’m not even talking about thatconversation.

The Big One.

I’m talking about letting a friend know

you hate Thai food

or finally offering the

correct pronunciation for “nuclear”.

In my experience, without exception,

we’re all just one uncomfortable conversation

away from getting something we want.

And, do you know what else?

No one on the receiving end of your discomfort

wishes you had waited longer to speak up.

No one.

Don’t be a wuss. Say it.

I’m five years away

from a career that required me

to know what’s going on in the world,

yet I still feel a social responsibility to

being on top of popular culture.

So, for research purposes,

I read Fifty Shades of Grey.

All three books.

It’s a good thing I did because

it keeps coming up in my coaching.

Women are reading it and—news

flash here—

not for the naughty bits.

Women are longing for the man

Grey is outside the bedroom.

The kind of guy who holds hands

and plants chaste kisses in public.

The kind of guy who watches his woman sleep

(okay that’s kinda creepy)

and tells her she’s beautiful

c-o-n-s-t-a-n-t-l-y.

Sure, some women want

more playroom than bedroom,

but there are also a fair number who

would happily take

a couple of swats on the ass

with a riding crop

for a compliment,

a flirtatious text message or

a plan for Saturday night.

The result is Fifty Shades of Frustrated.

And even more unrealistic expectations about

what a relationship should be.

Clearly, the only responsible thing to do

is to read the book together. Discuss.

And think twice about that silk tie for

Father’s Day.

Years ago, I had occasion to chat

with a Catholic Deacon

on a sort of regular basis.

(don’t ask)

In one of our conversations,

I said that church had never really done much for me.

I liked the singing

and the sense of community,

but I didn’t feel anything.

I didn’t get anything out of the service.

“That’s easy,” he said,

“You don’t go to get; you go to give.”

I feel the same about Bob Dylan concerts.

Maybe he can’t sing, as my friends relentlessly remind me,

but when I see him in concert,

I bring it.

Gratitude. Curiosity. Loyalty. Energy. Enthusiasm. Appreciation.

My full love-filled attention.

And for Bob,

I can only imagine that, in spite of being revered andloathed

(no one is neutral on Bob Dylan),

he brings it.

Before I found and fell in love with co-active coaching,

I sat on the fringes of a lot of workshops and training sessions,

judging the people and the process and

wondering why I wasn’t getting much out of them.

Now I know.

It took 30 years, God, Bob Dylan and Co-Activity

to teach me that, in any relationship where love is present,

I have to bring it.

I believe in the power of goal setting.

I set and (mostly) achieve

annual goals.

This year, overachiever that I

(sometimes) am,

I managed to hit all of my goals…

that required me to buy something:

House. Car. Dog.

even before first quarter ended.

(Plenty o’ time to tackle those behavioral

changes and lifelong bad habits later)

Less you think me shallow for

purchasing my way to

joy, satisfaction & fulfillment,

consider this:

never underestimate what “new” can do.

Just like working out in the morning

will have you burning calories all day,

a thoughtful purchase

can be just the thing to set

life changes in motion.

I didn’t think I cared about cars until,

at the urging of my favorite furniture maker,

I bought something sporty & sophisticated.*

NOW driving contributes to my personal style,

reinforces my excellent decision making ability

and just feels good.

Not only that but, I swear, my ass looks smaller in this car.

These purchases, as well as other goals,

are part of my overall plan to design my optimal life.

A life of style & substance.

Absolutely nothing wrong with checking that style box first.

*A Volvo C30s, in case you’re wondering. HOT!

I’ve learned a few things

about leadership from my dog trainer.

Hire for culture; train for skill.

My previous and beloved dog, Zoe,

came trained with prior experience as a pet.

Recently, I hired entry level: a puppy.

I vetted for attitude, enthusiasm and…size & weight.

(that last part won’t sit well w/ HR, but I wanted a big dog)

My entry level puppy came with no training and

no prior experience, but a great attitude and a

willingness to learn. Good!

Be honest: do you have the staff & skills to provide

the necessary training for your new hire?

Being short-staffed at home, I outsourced.

I hired a trainer (chicagopaws.com),

a walker (dog-alicious.com),

daycare & boarding (poochhotel.com).

I cannot overstate the importance

of having a team in place to

ensure the success of your new hire.

Catch them doing something right.

Be positive. Give clear direction.

Acknowledge, reward and

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

We’re a team; not a family

I’m all for treating pets and employees like family

(the good kind),

but that privilege is earned, not awarded.

Kids: unconditional love.

Pets & Employees: conditional love.

It pains me to say this: you are replaceable.

I used to think I-Love-You

were the three words I longed to hear.

Now it’s the seemingly less intimate

but far more engaging and validating

‘How was your day?’

About a decade ago, I was half

of a long distance relationship.

It lacked a lot of things,

most notably proximity & sobriety.

What it did have was time.

Lots of phone time discussing the events of our day.

There is an intimacy that comes

with sharing the ordinary.

From the trivial: a bad latte,

that funny thing someone said.

To the triumphant:

a successful presentation! a new client!

Much of my best coaching perspective

has been culled from

some pretty low brow places.

(My favorite being “wash the dish”

from a Julia Roberts’

Good Housekeeping article)

In the enjoyable/forgettable movie,

Shall We Dance,

Susan Sarandon’s character captures

this thought as it applies to marriage.

“’Your life will not go unnoticed

because I will notice it.

Your life will not go un-witnessed

Because I will be your witness’.”

In any relationship,

the very least and the very best we can do

is to bother to notice the other.

And, a great place to start is to ask

‘how was your day.’

For the full movie quote: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0358135/quotes?qt=qt0321606

I got a puppy.

An 11-week old lab mix

to bring into my hi-rise home and integrate

into my 40+ hours/week coaching practice.

I’ll wait while you divide yourself into

those who value “easy”

and those who value “possibility”.

There have been times

when I felt a little guilty

that my life was too easy.

Don’t get me wrong,

there are also times when I think,

WTF—even Job got a break in the end.

This is not one of those times.

Apparently, I like a challenge.

(You know what would make this more fun?

Quit my high-paying job!

You know what would make this more fun?

Get remarried!

You know what would make this more fun?

Start a business!)

I have been right to choose challenge over easy

at least most of the time.

Easy is great for things like

parking spaces,

driver’s license renewal

and on time flights.

But for living a full life,

easy isn’t the value I’m looking to honor.

Sometimes, you have to add a little crazy

to remind yourself that you’re alive.

And, as I’m told on a fairly regular basis,

“Crazy ain’t easy, Honey.”

True.

And crazy is where I want to be.

In addition to my “regular” clients,

I coach coaches in certification.

A sometimes difficult concept

for new coaches to get

is the distinction between

making it happen

and letting it happen.

When I first became a Vistage Chair

I told my supervisor

that I was really more of the

“let it happen” kind of coach.

He didn’t like this very much

and misinterpreted to mean

I wasn’t into working very hard.

So not true.

Letting it happen is fanning the flame;

making it happen is throwing gasoline on it.

A colleague of mine, who has been spending

time in Canada, has a better metaphor.

You can’t be “squeezing the stick” he says.

A hockey term meaning you’re trying too hard.

Using this metaphor, I had my own epiphany.

While I have been letting it happen

professionally with great success,

I have been

squeezing the shit out of the stick

in my personal life.

For the better part of my adult life,

I have held relationships so tightly

for fear that,

if I loosen my grip,

the truth will emerge

and I will be forced to make a decision

I would rather not make.

Leaving me with a metaphorical black eye.

You know these are curious times

when I title a post with

a play on a Bible quote:

“Physician, Heal Thyself”

(Luke 4:23, see also: Macbeth).

If you can get past that,

my work and life has been

largely focused of late

on people in the grip of

something seemingly larger

than themselves.

This offers the opportunity

to share a piece from a page

I once excitedly tore from a

book I read on an airplane

and now carry with me.

Lit, a memoir by Mary Karr,

describes Karr’s journey

with alcoholism and the salvation

she found in her conversion

to catholicism.

(Dammit! There’s that religion

thing again)

In the book, Karr’s therapist

tells her:

“You’ve got to nurture yourself

through those instants, he says,

recognize the source of the misery

as out of kilter with the stimulus.

Realize you’re not lost. You’re an adult…

perfectly capable of getting yourself home.”

I like to think of “home” here in the

metaphorical sense.

A homecoming, if you will.

It is completely and naturally within us

to be the sole creator of our own lives

and, as such, fully capable of stepping into

the magnificent expression of who we are meant to be.

I’m a stickler for clean language

in my coaching.

Don’t say “need” when you mean “want”;

don’t say “have to” when you mean “choose to”.

Words have power.

Too often clients come to coaching asking for how-to help:

tell me how to fill-in-the-blank.

Sadly, it doesn’t work that way.

Even if I worked that way, it wouldn’t work for you.

That’s because the expression isn’t

where there’s a way, there’s a will

for a reason.

Knowing how doesn’t get you any closer to why.

Is there anyone who doesn’t know how to

lose 10 lbs?

end a relationship?

change careers?

What we really mean is:

for the love of god,

help me connect with that

innermost part of me that knows what I want—not need,

but want—and make that want big enough

to overcome life’s distractions.

Because there will always be distractions.

Anyone can help you find the way to change your life,

(yes—there’s an app for that!)

only you can find the will.

Use your feeling words to connect to your why

and you’ll be on your way to finding your will.

Simon Sinek does a great Ted Talk

on The Power of Why. Check it out here.

My daughter knows this story well—

even if I’ve forgotten the particulars.

A research project asked young girls

what they wanted on their pizzas.

The girls enthusiastically named

their favorite pizza toppings.

The next year, the researchers asked again.

The girls answered the question with a question:

What do you like?

The next year, the same girls answered:

I don’t care, whatever you want.

Confidence.

Compromise.

Acquiescence.

It’s a slippery slope.

I worked for a woman who

facilitated a weekly staff meeting

in which she fired off random questions

at unsuspecting employees.

Current events. Office procedure. Business etiquette.

You didn’t have to have the right answer,

but you sure as hell had to have an answer.

Bother to have an opinion.

I appreciate the exercise

more now than I did then.

Acquiescing doesn’t make you easier to

get along with,

it makes you dull.

It’s a way to check out and let others do the much harder

work of healthy compromise via effective communication.

What if I really don’t care what I have on

my pizza?

Then offer a preference

and be willing to negotiate from there.

Because today it’s pizza

but tomorrow something much greater

will be at stake.

There’s a good chance you already

know this about me:

I spend a lot of time in

coffee shops.

If you ask my kids,

they’re tell you I spend a

lot of time in coffee shops

Eavesdropping and gawking.

(gawking, mom, you’re gawking again)

I can’t help it; I’m curious.

What I mostly overhear

is highly emotional re-telling of

someone-done-me-wrong stories.

You know the kind, one person is

glassy-eyed & uh-huhing

while the other is

shouting and spitting some variation on

Then he said, then I go,

Then he goes, then I go,

Then, he goes…

I know this because I do it myself.

My clients bring me versions of this,

as well.

The only difference is, in coaching,

I cut short the story.

Often with the sobering question

I have come to love:

“What’s your role in this?”

Taking ownership over your part of any

conflict can be difficult,

especially when that victim place is so comfortable

and, for some, so familiar.

Owning your part of the self-deception,

the lie you’re telling yourself, is the

cornerstone of the work of

The Arbinger Institute

(arbinger.com).

Good stuff if you suspect you’re

holding on tight to your own

someone-done-me-wrong story.

Once again, my former business partner

and good friend, Jay Farrell,

tuned me in to a better version of myself.

We were catching up over beer

when—three times—in one conversation

I said “What?” in response to his reference

to a current event.

What happened to you,” Jay said,

“You used to know everything.”

While that second part is a gross overstatement,

at one time, I was the one who knew

what was happening in the world

outside the agency.

Truth is, I had already noticed

myself getting dull.

One too many

references to my clients’

lives, rather than my own.

“I have a client who just got back from Thailand.”

“My client loves Girl & The Goat.”

I work a lot and, for me,

working too much is

when I’ve stopped having my own experiences

and started merchandising

the experiences of others.

This could be the grown up version of

living your life through your kids.

Notice the next time you ask someone

what’s new and he/she responds with

detailed explanations of their

kids’ activities.

Uh-huh, now tell me about you…

As for me, I registered for a class,

booked a trip and started listening

more rigorously to NPR.

June 18, 2011

I may have written about this before,

but I am reminded of a foolproof method

for making critical decisions in your life.

It’s the “Hell, Yes!” rule.

As my friend Kristine says when it comes to dating,

If he’s not a “Hell, Yes!”,

well then he’s a “Hell, No.”

She was right about that,

so I’ve taken to using the “Hell, Yes” method

with every major decision in my life.

I’m planning a move and looking at real estate.

It’s a daunting process that I narrowed down to

a truly stunning property across town.

Do you love it, my friend and financial planner,

Heather Locus, asked.

“Yes…I mean…I think so,” I said weakly,

revealing volumes to myself and to Heather.

That place may have been a “yes”,

but it wasn’t a “Hell, Yes!”

Where do the “Hell, Yeses!”

show up in your life?

Parenting? Hell, yes!

Coaching? Hell, yes!

Friends, lovers and other strangers

who guarantee good times, good conversation

and appreciation & acknowledgement for

who you are?

Hell, Yes! Hell, Yes! Hell, Yes!

And, please, don’t save the Hell, Yes! Method

for special occasions;

it’s good for everyday use, too.

French Fries: yes

Onion rings: Hell, Yes!

Making a decision can be tough.

Especially when you are deciding

between the known and the

unknown-but-potentially-better-

but-maybe-not-better-

just-different-with-its-own-set-

of-problems-that-may-be-just-as-bad-

or-GOD-FORBID-even-worse-

than-what-I’m-dealing-with-now.

A conundrum, for sure.

I am reminded of my many clients

who come to me desperate

to make a change in their lives…

then argue with me in favor of

the status quo.

(Hey, you called me—I’m not attached to

you leaving your job,

your business partner,

your husband,

your city—

that was your idea)

That’s why most decisions are made

when the pain of non-decision outweighs

the risk of the actions and difficult conversations

required to make the decision.

Until then, holding out for a better offer

(ie job, partner, husband, city, TV show,

dog, weekend plans….)

can paralyze the decision making process

all together.

It’s unlikely the better offer is something

you will stumble upon.

Even less likely it’s something

that will find you

if only you wait long enough.

The better offer—

the one you may have to

walk through fire to attain—

is the one that you create.

From there, it has the potential to

get even better

if you use your

super decision-making powers

to enroll others in it with you.

I make my living not telling people what to do.

As much as I would sometimes like it to be,

coaching is not about providing solutions.

There are good reasons for this.

One, and I use this quite often,

I couldn’t possibly know the right answer

to what you should do with

your business,

your marriage,

your kid

or your hair style.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have opinions.

(Oh, do I have opinions…)

But opinions are only that.

I am not you.

And that’s probably a good thing.

The other—and this is really the important one–

it’s just not effective.

When I’m on the other side of

an unsolicited

“you know what you should do…”

I completely shut down.

I don’t think I am alone in this.

Unsolicited advice–

even the clever Jeopardy-style

response posed as a question–

Makes me bristle and

puts me on the defense.

There’s a reason they call it

“getting defensive”.

Rare is the man, woman or even child

who needs or wants someone to tell

him or her what to do.

But just in case, you can always ask:

would you like my opinion?

And, confidentially speaking,

No. I don’t mean you.

Years ago when I was in marketing,

I led the creative for a significant client pitch.

With me on the team was a high level

strategy guy we brought in from New York.

Ted Parrack.

Ted defies convention in just about every way.

He doesn’t look like an “ad guy” —

by Don Draper standards or today’s standards.

He’s more Harvard meets Hell’s Angels.

When we arrived at the client’s office,

Ted asked if we could

get into the conference room early.

While the rest of us were shuffling in,

Ted got busy with the patience and precision of

Harvey Keitel’s character “The Wolf” in Pulp Fiction.

You know the scene where he cleans the car

after John Travolta offs Marvin in the back seat.

Silent. Focused. Meticulous.

Ted erased white boards.

Placed random papers,

coffee creamers and extra napkins

in the garbage can.

Moved the garbage can out of sight.

Unplugged, wrapped and tucked

all the telephone-related paraphernalia

into the credenza.

Wiped the aforementioned credenza with a napkin.

Put napkin in pocket.

Adjusted blinds.

Took his seat.

All without a single word.

Then, Ted snapped open his laptop,

looked at me and said,

“Julie, always own the room.”

To be fair, I stole this line from someone special

who stole it from everyone’s favorite mildly depressed

comic strip character, Charlie Brown.

In my work, I hear these words a lot

(except my clients don’t call me Linus.

Regrettably, I’m more the Lucy type.

Hold on to your footballs).

There’s an expectation that our work

should make us happy.

Truth is, when purpose is missing,

happy is hard to come by.

This week I completed with a client

who left the successful business she co-founded

and opened up her heart

to the possibility of doing something truly great.

In that heart space she found her purpose.

After I said good bye to Rose,

I said hello to a new client who is

successful in his job, but just not happy.

He wants a mission instead of a career.

Purpose. Mission. Fulfillment. Happiness.

As corny as it may sound,

I believe there is a spiritual awakening

taking place.

I get to see it every day.

People choosing to live

purposeful, fulfilling, happy lives

by articulating their true purpose

and tapping into their unique gifts

to fulfill that purpose.

And, that is something that

will make Snoopy do that Snoopy dance.

It turns out mother was wrong:

it’s good to talk to strangers.

Last year I was at a book signing

in Toronto and spent the better

part of the evenings talking to

a total stranger about life, love

and EFT tapping therapy

(fascinating!)

In the Las Vegas Marathon,

I ran with a young man

who has intuitive powers that

allow him to see visions of

past life events.

(cool and creepy!)

I’ve met dozens of interesting people

at Peet’s coffee shop.

Most recently, a physical therapist

so passionate about his work

that I left completely recharged

about mine

(surprisingly restorative!)

My kids spent their formative years

in a downtown hi-rise.

They can talk to anyone.

Doormen and elevator buildings

are great for sharpening

those chat-it-up skills

crucial to business & social success.

(They’re called “elevator speeches”

for a reason)

One of my clients found himself in

a Starbucks line

behind Deepak Chopra!

He introduced himself with:

“people are always asking

for your help. I’m curious:

what can I do to help you?”

The result has been an unexpected

mutually beneficial relationship.

Who knows where it will lead?

Talking to strangers: very good.

Asking how you can help: even better.

I am following with much interest

the brouhaha over the recently published

and highly sound-bitable parenting book,

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom

by Harvard Law Professor, Amy Chou.

Nothing matters more to me than parenting.

Unlike Chou, my single parent method was

more Tigger (amuse & confuse) than Tiger.

I did make sure I completely lost my shit

from time to time during key playdates

with my children & their friends.

That way, word got back that,

although I was widely believed to be

the “fun mom”, things could take a

Dark. Turn. At. Any. Moment.

I had to outwit them—

they were Chicago Public School kids.

My marshmallow suburban upbringing

was no match for their street smarts.

My strategy was to keep them guessing.

At an all-school ice skating party,

my third grade son tried on the F-word for the first time.

I yanked him off the ice, tossed him

in the car and took him straight to…

Starbucks for hot chocolate.

He was so confused he didn’t swear

again until high school.

Truth is it was cold and

that F-bomb was my ticket out of there.

A significant part of my coaching practice

is working with clients to discover what’s next.

Some clients know what they want

and my role is to champion them through

the steps to get there.

Others don’t know what they want

until we uncover and name it.

Both require sometimes difficult,

sometimes exhilarating work be done.

I find myself in much the same place.

Wanting to—needing to–know what’s next.

My own coach challenges me to stay in

what’s now rather than look for what’s next.

A useful perspective shift.

There is definitely value in staying

and in creating the space for what’s next.

But not quite right for where I am right now.

I love what I have now.

And I want more.

It’s like waiting in a waiting room.

The room is lovely

and the magazines are interesting and plentiful.

But I’m restless to know how long I’ll be here.

A place to look if you suspect

you may be languishing in a waiting room

of your own creation

is to notice how you respond to:

“what’s new?”

Do you answer with updates on your children,

your spouse, friends?

Are you waiting…

or are you creating your own real life?

Effective communication is

very important to me.

I believe, as author Susan Scott says,

Conversations are the relationship.

And, we’re always in relationship.

First with ourselves and then with others.

To help facilitate that understanding,

I distributed 20+ copies of

The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman

this holiday season.

It’s not my favorite relationship book,

mainly because Chapman’s

continual reference to

“keeping your love tanks full”

sounds queer

and because I find his

Christian finger-wagging at

the dangers of trying to satisfy

love irresponsibly (read: via sex)

unnecessary to this otherwise

straightforward communication model.

Chapman believes we each prefer & respond best to

one of five primary love languages:

Words of affirmation

Gifts

Acts of service

Quality time

Physical touch

in not just romantic relationships, all relationships.

It turns out, doing unto others

is not the way to go.

Unless, you happen to share

the same love language.

Better to figure out what

those with whom you share a relationship prefer

and get onboard with that.

Or, you can do like my client did.

Call me and say

“just tell me what to do.”

It’s my pleasure to provide that

act of service

in exchange for some quality time.

Each year, I do a completion ritual with my clients.

It’s a ritual I first practiced with my own coach.

She got it from another coach.

Now, I share with my clients,

many of whom are coaches;

many of whom share it with their clients.

Do you see where this is going?

You don’t even have to be in a coaching relationship

to practice it.

(Yes, as noted in a previous post, you can coach yourself!)

It goes loosely likes this:

Make three lists.

On the first, list your

successes, accomplishments, celebrations & joys for the year.

On the second, list your

disappointments, failures, rejections & losses for the year.

On the third, list your discoveries & learnings.

Lessons you would like to take into the new year.

It’s not important to capture everything,

just the things you find most meaningful.

When complete, review lists one and two.

Celebrate. Meditate. Contemplate.

And destroy.

Keep your learnings for the new year.

Congratulate yourself on a year of

good & bad

successes & failures

wins & losses.

You can’t change the past,

but you can start right now to make sure next year’s lists

are exactly what you want them to be.

It’s my tradition to make calls

on Thanksgiving to the

people in my life for

whom I am truly thankful.

Old friends.

New relationships.

Loyal clients.

This year,

I don’t intend to make

those calls.

No special reason

other than I find myself

less inclined to reach out

and more inclined to lean in.

This year, I am thankful

for cozy.

My word for the intimacy

that is created when

you clear out all the insecurity

and worry and anxiety

that isn’t feeding you

and likely isn’t even real or true.

What’s left in its place

is cozy.

In this space

relationships deepen,

friendships grow with you

and chance meetings

become surprisingly lovely.

Pure joy found in conversations

over shared food & drinks.

Countless cups of coffee.

Tired jokes that still make you laugh.

Perfect words spoken at just the right time.

(fill in your version of cozy here)

It’s that puffy-comforter connection

that satisfies and, at the same time,

makes me hungry for more.

This Thanksgiving,

I am setting an intention

for creating more cozy in my life.

Staying hungry for more time

with people who bring me joy

and less time settling with

people who don’t feed me.

I’m experiencing a lot of movement

in the universe.

Work. Life. Love.

Work takes new forms.

Life takes new turns.

Love finds new partners.

It makes me wonder

if you

(and by “you” I, of course, mean “me”)

are moving

or moving on?

If you’re just moving,

without doing the real work

of moving on,

You’re inviting—no, guaranteeing—

your bags will arrive

if not with you,

on the very. very. next. train.

Even heavier than before.

Those who successfully move on

give themselves the

gift of self reflection.

They take the time and do the work

to get out of the blame place and

own the responsibility for where they are

and where they want to move to.

In work, life and love.

In the best scenarios, the move comes

with a healthy and appropriate level of

grieving and space that allows for

that bittersweet emotion

of gently holding what was

in its proper place.

Thus, the high school reunion.

Drinks with former co-workers.

A phone call to or from an ex.

It’s an acknowledgment of what was,

without making the other

person, place or thing wrong.

With the keen awareness that,

while not wrong,

clearly no longer quite right.

I had a conversation with a client recently

about dating.

Newly divorced, his approach is

if it happens, it happens.

In marketing we call this

an in-bound effort.

If the phone rings,

we answer it.

As you can image,

this approach to dating

is about as effective

as it is in marketing.

Somewhere between

not very and not at all.

It made me think of

areas in my own life

where I am accepting

what comes to me rather than

creating the outcome I desire.

How much time do we spend

waiting to respond

when we could be creating?

There’s a great book title

(maybe a great book too.

I haven’t read it, but I frequently quote the title):

Hope is Not a Strategy.

Hoping for

your job

your relationship

your life

to change,

and fantasizing about your response

when it does,

isn’t likely to make it so.

Creating, on the other hand,

absolutely will move us forward.

That’s what I love about coaching.

A good coach won’t let you stay

in that passive place of

in-bound only marketing

of yourself & your life.

And, that’s what I love about marketing.

It’s a great metaphor for

just about everything.

The art of coaching,

like the art of conversation,

is in asking the questions.

Coaching doesn’t pretend to know the answers.

I couldn’t possibly know what’s right

for my clients or their lives.

Instead, a coaching relationship stands

with the courage to ask

the seemingly simple,

but oh-so-clarifying questions.

The ones that sometimes feel

like a sucker punch to the gut.

Whoomp.

With love.

And that’s exactly the point and the purpose.

To get you out of your head

and into your heart and soul

where your real truth often lies.

Not THE truth, but your truth.

Your truth is all that really matters.

What are you pretending not to know?

What is this really about?

If not now, when?

It’s from this deep place of knowing–

in-the-bones knowing–

that fully alive happens.

People literally snap awake

from life long numbing slumber.

Head space clears.

Birds sing.

While our over-developed, over-praised

heads are dizzy from trying to figure it out,

our hearts and souls are

too often waiting quietly

for you to notice and claim

the answer you already know to be true.

What are you pretending not to know?

What is this really about?

If not now, when?

I’m not much for meditation.

I’m envious of those who meditate–

like I am envious of those who

benefit from organized

religion, therapy and proper hydration.

My mind is too busy.

I thought yoga was my meditation

until someone pointed out that

what I am really doing is

stretching

because, while my body does yoga,

my mind does something

much more like a

mental decathlon,

alternating between clock watching

and powerful fantasizing.

At the same time, I notice that

meditation is what you make of it.

I’ve walked my dog every day,

several times a day, for more than a decade.

Silently,

methodically,

religiously,

tracing smaller and smaller paths

around first one neighborhood,

then another

until one of us disappeared into that

higher state of consciousness.

Without her, I literally have to walk myself.

For me, that takes the form of “going for coffee”.

My own shorthand for

centering & grounding myself.

Like meditation, its both restorative

and celebratory.

Coffee is my “go to” in good times & in bad.

There is meditation in any ritual,

I think.

A comfort in doing the familiar

that lets the mind disengage from the motion

and allows the body to find its still.

There’s the good kind of change.

The kind you plan in advance,

figure out the details

and mentally prepare for how great it’s going to be….

Then there’s that other kind of change.

The kind that just happens.

When you least expect it.

The curve ball.

The zig when you thought you were zagging.

The dead stop. When you thought you were all about go.

That trick with the rug.

But change, even unplanned change,

Maybe even especially unplanned change,

can be exhilarating.

And bring all kinds of unexpected

experiences right to your new found front door.

If only you can rally your

perspective in that new direction.

Easier said than done. True.

But when you get there,

to that new-perspective-place,

all kinds of givens come up for review.

And all kinds of things

just might be there already

waiting for you

a half a turn away.

Warm nights. Expansive views.

Frosty beer. Fireworks.

Planning and figuring and preparing will sometimes,

often in fact,

get you from point A to point B.

But, planning and figuring and preparing

will rarely—if ever—find you pleasantly

surprised at points beyond your immediate imagination.

That’s where change, delicious curve ball-y change,

comes in.

Some 20 years ago,

I heard a speaker talk about

“the 3:00 a.m.s in your life”.

The relationships you can call on

at three in morning.

At the time, I couldn’t imagine

who that would be

or under what circumstances

I would make that call.

I’m the capable one. Always.

Then, my husband had a seizure in the bathtub

and went unconscious.

Not at 3:00 a.m., at around 11 p.m.,

while our two kids slept in the next room.

I called my friend Joe and he said,

I’m on my way.

This week, I’m tumbling through a series of

far, far from-life-threatening,

yet still emotionally challenging

events related to my move.

My kids, as always, are great.

Tessa is my “handler”,

organizing all the details and me.

She and Patrick put us up & put up with us.

Ben drew on his self-taught survival skills,

bucking up without a shower or a place to stay.

As a family, we look out for each other.

Friends, too, if you’re lucky.

On Monday, I called my friend Dean.

Before I even explained,

he heard the emotion in my voice

and said,

“Where are you? I’m coming to get you.”

And, he did.

My daughter dislikes surprises.

I know this because when my kids

were about six and seven

I surprised them with tickets to the

Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards

complete with backstage passes to the

celebrity after party.

We had already planned a vacation

to Seattle.

When we got to the airport,

I steered them to the next gate

explaining we had to make a stop

in LA first because I had

TICKETS TO THE NICKELODEON

KIDS CHOICE AWARDS!!

Tessa burst into tears.

Ben looked from his sister to me,

back to his sister.

Then, joined in her uncontrollable hysteria.

No surprises for Tessa

(a preference she has carried into adulthood).

Ben’s neutral on the whole surprise thing,

but don’t upset his sister.

I love surprises.

They restore my faith

in possibility and remind me

the universe sometimes, lots of times,

delivers on the positive outcome

I’m anticipating anyway.

An unexpected text, email or call.

An out-of-the-blue client opportunity.

Comcast picks up on the first ring.

A surprisingly good conversation.

Or, a night that stays with you for days.

Each surprise breathes possibility into the next.

Each outcome has the opportunity to

over deliver on already heady expectations

of what’s next.

A couple of years ago

I decided to sell my house.

In preparation, I purged.

A process I truly love.

So that October,

between work and other commitments,

I touched everything I own.

Every photo, every book,

every piece of clothing,

every pot, every pan.

Then—and this is the important part—

purposely, intentionally invited

only the things I truly love

back into my life.

Oh sure, there’s still a

picnic cooler I’m neutral on

and some tools I’m unattached to,

but for the most part

every thing I own is something I love.

Or was…until nearly two years

went by, the market went south

and things started creeping back into my house

and into my life.

So now, I’m revisiting the process

of creating space and being intentional.

It’s a great practice for all areas of life.

Look around at the work that you do

and the company you keep.

Purge. Create space. Be intentional.

Keep only the relationships that thrill you;

engage only in the conversations that feed you;

pursue only the work that inspires you.

You may find, as I have, that you need

much less than you think

to have much more than you ever thought possible.

Earlier this month, I saw the Mylie Cyrus movie,

The Last Song, with my friend Grace.

It was marginally entertaining, shamelessly clichéd

and should have been completely forgettable.

And would have been, if it weren’t for my noticing

that I was strongly identifying with

Mylie’s character throughout the movie.

(I didn’t identify at all with the age- and intellect-appropriate

Kelly Preston mom character)

I saw myself as that tough-and-too-often-

misunderstood 15-year-old girl,

taking on the world,

in love, at last, with the right boy.

It felt familiar and thrilling.

Last month, I saw Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind,

a popular Chicago theater experience

that performs 30 plays in 60 minutes.

The show’s creator, now in his 40s, has been performing

in Too Much Light for more than 20 years.

In one of the more poignant two-minute plays,

he talks about what it feels like to be treated differently

because he looks old on the outside,

but has all the dreams and desires

of his 20-year-old self on the inside.

It’s all still in there—

regardless of the body you carry it in.

The 15-year-old girl.

The 20-year-old boy.

And your chance for a do-over.

I had a lazy afternoon conversation

about making life plans.

Intuitively, having a plan

sounds better than not having a plan.

We make plans.

What are your plans for…

the weekend,

the summer,

retirement?

Too much of a plan sounds rigid and limiting.

Too little, risky and irresponsible.

If the choice is plan or no plan,

I’m pro-plan.

The caution, I think, is being a slave to a plan

that doesn’t make room

for the delicious possibility of life

to change your course.

You’re offered a dream job

You discover a new passion.

You (accidentally) fall in love.

Dreams, if we have them at all,

tend to be of the practical kind.

A promotion.

A vacation.

A smaller pair of jeans.

It seems that unless we know

exactly how we’re going to get there

it doesn’t make the list.

If all you have is a plan

then all you’ll achieve is

your to-do list.

Shouldn’t life be bigger than that?

Plans are great;

dreams are better.

Dreams take patience and

the unwavering belief in possibility.

It’s okay if you don’t know the how of it

or even the when of it.

Plans are in your head;

dreams, in your heart.

When my daughter was in kindergarten

I got her a gig as a hand model

for the back of a Kellogg’s cereal box.

She worked her shot at fame for

four show & tells:

The layout!

The Polaroid!

The press proof!

And, finally—the pièce de résistance—

the cereal box!

Each week, her class celebrated

with no less enthusiasm then

the previous week,

banging heads to get a closer look,

as Tessa revealed

first her own hand,

then—look!—the identical hand on the box!

As adults, we don’t celebrate

big enough or often enough.

I keep a file on my desktop titled

“YAY ME!”

It’s a collection of emails I have received

from clients and colleagues

acknowledging me for who I am and what I do.

It’s good to read and even better

when I can share their words

with someone who cares for me.

Acknowledgement & celebration.

Jobs won, clients landed, goals met.

The completion of a spectacular piece of original work.

All deserve celebration in whatever form that takes.

You get to decide.

And, if you can share it with someone

who holds you & your accomplishments

with the same unselfish wonder & appreciation

of that kindergarten class,

even better.

When I was in high school

My two best friends and I

did a modern dance routine

to “Hey, Big Spender”.

Our dance club sponsor,

aka gym teacher and

former Playboy bunny,

gave us the idea and the moves.

We made our own trampy costumes.

I guess from the perspective of

a former Playboy bunny

high school girls gyrating on stage

dressed like hookers

seems like reasonable entertainment.

As recently as last year, my dad said:

“Remember when you dressed like

a prostitute for that school show?

What the hell was that?”

Different perspective.

When my kids were in grade school,

a mom walked out of a

production of Grease.

What’s her problem, I thought.

What kid hasn’t seen Grease?

Apparently the ones whose parents think it’s inappropriate

for them to see 12 year olds

singing about getting knocked up in high school.

Different perspective.

Exploring perspectives is at

the core of balance coaching.

Balance helps you shift

out of the absoluteness of truth

into the fluidity of perspective.

We’re always in a perspective,

even if it feels like “the truth”.

There’s what happened

and what we make up about it.

Exclusive to the Timberlakes: icksnay on the oldcay eetfay

In a now famous

Colbrese family story,

my daughter and I

are moving my son and

all his worldly goods

into his first dorm room.

Three flights up.

In August.

Overcome with heat and emotion,

(mostly emotion)

I burst into tears and start wailing:

“I’m hot! I’m hot! I can’t do this! I’m dying!”

To which, my daughter grabs me by both shoulders,

and says:

“It’s hot. We’re all hot.

Hot is not something that’s happening just to you.”

A useful reminder:

It’s not about me.

(unless it is)

Today, when a client, a friend, a man

doesn’t call, doesn’t show, doesn’t respond

exactly as I would have liked

with exactly the words, tone and pre-agreed upon

description of my awesomeness,

it’s not necessarily a personal affront to me.

(unless it is)

I’m coming to learn

there’s a remarkably good chance

that the other person’s words and/or behavior

have nothing to do with me.

(unless it does)

I’m reminded of Ellsworth Toohey’s desperate plea to

Howard Roark:

“Why don’t you tell me what you think of me in any words you wish.”

And Howard’s infamous reply:

“But I don’t think of you.”

It’s not about you, Ellsworth.

(unless it is).

Do these jeans make my ass look fat?

No really. Be honest.

In my coaching and in my life

people sometimes,

and by sometimes I mean often,

confuse honesty with full disclosure.

Honesty: good.

Full Disclosure: almost never good.

I’m actually having trouble thinking of an example

where full disclosure is appropriate.

With your doctor?

Your attorney?

Spiritual adviser?

Sharing STD info with a new partner?

Even then, I’m thinking timing is everything.

And you might want to spare the details.

Better to answer a direct question with a clarifying question:

“Why do you ask?”

“That’s a very personal question. I’m curious why you’re interested?”

S-l-o-w the conversation way down

and give yourself time to decide:

full disclosure or

will honesty do the trick?

While we’re on the subject,

every time some one describes himself

or, way more often, herself as

“brutally honest”, I flinch.

Wouldn’t just “honest” get the job done.

Maybe with even better results?

So, really.

Do these jeans make my ass look fat?

Honest: You know, I like the other pair on you better.

Full Disclosure: Yes and I’ve thought that every time you’ve worn them.

Brutally Honest: (insert truck backing up noise here).

You decide.

I facilitate branding & marketing

strategy sessions.

I’m pride myself in getting

creative ideas out of any group:

jewelry makers,

schoolteachers,

haunted house owners

(don’t ask).

With some groups, it’s work.

Recently, it was anything but.

I facilitated a group of

improv-trained actors.

Big difference.

What I noticed is

they are uniquely trained in

and committed to

making each other look good.

The room was electric with each idea

building off the previous one

and a constant stream of acknowledgment for

a good line,

a good thought,

a good direction.

No one was in love with his/her

own idea.

Not one Eeyore in the group whining

“that’ll never work” or “we tried that before.”

Just making each other look good.

I have some rock & roll friends,

Phil & Ninette,

who made a commitment some 10 years ago

that whenever one of them leaves the room,

the other says something nice about that person.

It creates a fairly regular banter of

“Man, she’s beautiful”

“Am I lucky, or what?”

“Doesn’t he blow you away?”

It’s purposeful affirmation

that gets witnessed

again and again.

I’m intrigued by

what we could create

if we all committed to

making each other look good.

My son turned 21 last month

making me officially

done with parenting.

Oh sure, there’s

still college to pay for

and I get to weigh in on things

like spring break, apartment leases

and wisdom teeth.

But, for the most part,

I’ve successfully completed

the most fulfilling & joyful

job of my life.

Not just once, but twice.

(parenting my daughter,

wrapped up a year ago).

In both cases,

I’m extremely pleased

with the results.

My success as a parent

puts my marketing career

to shame

and makes my coaching

look amateurish.

I’m a really, really good mom.

Here’s my secret: single parenting.

Except for a couple weeks ago

when my son had an

emergency appendectomy

and my daughter and I,

each in a different state,

agreed that a dad would be useful

now & then,

I have generally not minded

going it alone as a parent.

No one to question my decisions;

no one to be the “fun” parent to

my (sorta) strict style.

We just bumped along

like a lopsided family

and rolled our eyes every time

a restaurant hostess said:

“table for four?”

(do you see four people here?)

as if dad were eternally parking the car.

Every year,

for years and years,

about this time

I get itchy to book a trip

to stay with my friend, Chris, in LA.

It’s my version of a

sanitarium

minus the social stigma

and with much

better food.

And wine!

The timing is less about the calendar

and more about a feeling.

Restless, out-of-sorts or,

as we say in my family,

“the world is too much with her”.

I make decisions all day long.

For myself and, too often seemingly,

for everyone around me.

With Chris, I don’t have to make decisions.

Just writing that restores me.

Not making decisions

is like being on vacation.

That can come in the form of

a week with Chris or,

closer to home,

in the form of someone

ordering for me in a restaurant.

Anything.

Really.

I mean it.

You cannot possibly make

a bad food decision on my behalf.

Also, in no particular order:

Strong coffee; good wine.

Short runs; long showers.

Good, connected conversation—

all too rare and therefore

all the more special–

restores me.

Over coffee, of course.

And, especially,

late night phone calls

where the day is discussed

across the miles

long into the dark of night.

I often refer to the learnings from

CTI’s Co-Active Leadership Program.

Partly because they’re so brilliant

and partly because they’re

so present with me more than

two years later.

Today, I am reminded of an exercise that

demonstrates what it’s like to be

fully met.

One hundred percent one hundred percent.

Standing face-to-face with a partner,

high up in the trees,

with only each other for stability,

you clasp hands, lock eyes and

shimmy sideways on parallel wires

that get increasingly further away

from each other

until you are completely horizontal.

You have no choice but to lean in

one hundred percent one hundred percent.

Or, fall.

It’s an extremely emotional experience

as terror turns to trust and trust turns to love.

Particularly for those of us who rarely feel

this met on the ground.

One hundred percent one hundred percent.

Afterwards, I wrote in my journal:

“Why would I settle for less?”

What I love about this exercise,

besides that it’s such a great, in-the-body

metaphor for what actually happens in

relationships that matter,

is that leaning in too much is as

damaging as leaning in too little.

You let yourself fall in love up there.

Or, you fall.

I received some great coaching last week from

Karen Kimsey-House,

Co-Founder of The Coaches Training Institute.

(Coaching doesn’t get any better than this!)

We were talking about a colleague who

I find extremely difficult to be around.

Obviously, this is my work to do because

he keeps showing up in my life.

I sit next to an empty seat, that seat is his.

We are randomly put into pairs; I’m his partner.

I get it.

But, why is this my work to do and not his?

Karen helped me see this person

with compassion

and build a relationship

from a common stake.

It’s not easy, but it’s possible.

Because I can.

Because I am enough and can

give it away.

With further examination

(and coaching)

I see myself reflected in him.

His overt need for acknowledgement

triggers my “I don’t matter” reflex

in an icky way.

The two types you might not

be inclined to acknowledge are

those that really

need it,

beg for it,

perform for it

and those who look like

they don’t need it at all.

Underneath, we’re the same.

Notice me.

Remind me that I matter.

Because,

even standing in my full confidence,

I sometimes forget.

In my work with my own coach,

I frequently find myself saying

“I just want to know…”

The topic can be anything:

–is this where I’m supposed to be living?

–is this the work I should be doing?

–am I in the right relationship?

I just want to know.

Even without my coach’s pointing,

I notice in my desire to control,

I actually give away my power.

My location, my work, my relationships

are all up to me—

I get to decide.

I get to create and discover and uncover

the knowing as I go along.

This comes up frequently with my clients, as well.

“If I just knew (fill in the blank)

I could get okay with it.”

What’s so great about knowing?

I ask my clients.

Well, then I could start planning.

So plan as if it’s so.

But, that’s not what I really want.

The truth revealed.

Too often we spend our energy

getting okay instead of

getting into action to create something

bigger, better, BOLD.

The work to do just might be to give up control of needing to know

in favor of taking control of being present

to what you want to create from here.

“Experts” say that New Year’s resolutions

just don’t work

and that, by making them,

you’re setting yourself up for failure.

It’s true, some ridiculously high percentage of resolutions

are abandoned by February…

or before.

Thank you, experts, for knowing me better than I know myself.

This is precisely why I advocate

jump starting those resolutions this week.

Today even.

Then, by Monday—because who would start a life change on a Friday?—

you will have a serious week of compliance already in effect.

Last year, I made a

“30 days of yoga” commitment,

that I successfully completed

and then some.

I could lift cars by the end of that

30 days.

It helps if your resolutions have a

beginning, an end and some clear

measurement of success.

I also invite that your resolutions

are not from the Lental school of deprivation.

Rather than deny yourself something

and foster all that negative juju,

why not add something wonderful to your life?

Introduce more TV time, open swearing

or permission to buy every magazine with

the stars of Twilight on the cover?

It’s your year, you should be able to

use it in a way that doesn’t just serve you,

but celebrates you.

I got married in 1982,

days after the completion of

my husband’s first treatment

for Hodgkin’s disease.

We moved to Arizona that

summer where,

by Christmas,

he was back in the hospital.

I was 23

in our apartment

boohooing to Jim on the phone

in his hospital bed

about spending Christmas alone.

Come and get me, he said.

And, I did.

Very Bonnie & Clyde like,

in the Mazda station wagon

he won in a poker game

the night before our wedding.

It sounds selfish on my part,

but it taught me the distinction

between taking care of

and being cared for.

I did a lot of necessary care taking.

Jim’s act of rebellion

was an act of love

and caring for.

We went from the hospital to

the movie theater

and saw two movies back-to-back,

Once Upon a Time in America

and another I can’t remember,

but wish I could.

We had dinner at a

Jewish deli,

the only thing open on

Christmas in Arizona in 1982.

I dropped Jim back at the hospital

and he continued his treatment.

It’s a story my kids love to hear

about their dad,

the gambler, the rule-breaker,

and my best Christmas ever.

I am acknowledging gratitude late this year.

I think it’s a good thing if I’m too busy

living in gratitude to have time

to write about gratitude.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend,

I texted

“I’m insanely happy.”

And, I was/am.

I don’t think I’ve ever made that declaration.

But, that’s what happens when you have people

in your life who make you better.

Not by anything they do,

but by everything they be.

Best of all, you know who you are.

Because I am grateful, not just once a year,

but always.

Just having you in my life makes me better.

And takes me to the “whelmed” of overwhelmed.

So, I made calls this year, as I always do,

to friends, relatives, clients and colleagues who

fill me.

I didn’t get to everyone by phone,

but I got to everyone in my own way.

Some people who were in my life last year,

aren’t in my life this year.

And I’m reminded of the John Irving quote:

“The hardest thing to accept

about the passage of time

is that the people who mattered most to us

are all wrapped up in parenthesis.”

Bittersweet parenthesis that create the

space for new relationships.

I have noticed something about many men I know

in my work and in my life.

Not unhappy is the new happy.

Somewhere, somehow, men have decided that

not being unhappy is where they set the bar.

In their marriage, in their career, in life.

Not bad is good enough.

Men who get through each day

keeping the peace; avoiding conflict.

Good men, good fathers

who deserve to be wildly happy, full and met,

instead, are men who somehow

learned,

were taught

or decided

their happy doesn’t matter.

So, they do everything their families ask

and don’t ask for anything for themselves.

Sometimes stealing little bits of happiness

when no one’s looking

and pretending it’s enough.

It makes me sad

and it makes my heart hurt in a way I can’t explain.

And it makes me fearful for what we might

be creating in our sons.

What is needed, I think,

is to have the courage to show—not tell, show–our sons

they matter.

And the way to do that, Dad,

is to show them you matter.

Not when they’re out of the house, now.

Do your own hard—and sometimes painful—work

to find your happy.

Whatever happy might look like.

While running along the lake front this afternoon,

I caught a snippet of pre-school dialogue from over the playground fence:

“Whatever you’re doing, it’s probably not a good idea.”

This said, with all the emotion of Eeyore, from the mouth

of a tiny little boy to his equally tiny friend.

I glanced over my shoulder to get a look at the

joy-sucking parents who undoubtedly planted this premature

angst in their child.

Playgrounds can be scary.

And marshmallows.

And driving.

And going out after dark.

And moving to new places and meeting new people

and trying new things and taking any risk of the

physical, mental or, even the more profoundly scary,

emotional kind.

Risky. Risky. Risky.

In my coaching, I sometimes point my clients to the space between

risky and reckless.

Risky: good;

reckless: probably not a good idea.

Trouble is, it’s not always so easy to tell the difference.

And, once found, it’s not always so easy to stay balanced there.

As I continue on the path, I assess my own life

against the rhythm of my run.

“Whatever I’m doing, it’s probably not a good idea”

These words actually resonate with me.

And, I’m risking it anyway.

Over the summer

I read the Twilight book series.

I held off as long as I could

having little interest in vampires,

science fiction

or even popular fiction

most of the time.

Then, while deeply committed

to the second or third book,

I had two distinct thoughts:

One, I’d date a vampire.

(please ignore this thought for the purposes of this post)

And two,

this why you don’t kill yourself.

Like everyone,

I’ve had some good years and bad years.

Okay. Decades. Of each.

And, what strikes me

again and again

is the magnificence,

pure pleasure and joy

that can bubble up when you least expect it.

Like reading the Twilight series from start to finish.

Or, the conversations and relationships that form

sitting at Matthew’s table

until morning turns into evening

and coffee turns into beer.

And, back again.

Or, yesterday running along the lakefront

on a breathtakingly beautiful fall morning

and stopping for coffee after.

For this, and many, many other reasons,

you train yourself to

notice and feel.

Notice the way the light plays in

stunningly beautiful photographs.

And, feel what you’re feeling

even if you weren’t expecting it and don’t understand it.

Let it in.

I have developed a seriously strong “flight” response.

In my early days, as an emotionally unpredictably creative director,

I was much more about the fight.

Loud and wildly unprofessional verbal hallway sparing.

Oh, how I loved the fight!

Back then.

It predictably produced unpredictable results

and, at the time, I believe earned me

a bit of a reputation for being “difficult”.

I’m much less difficult these days.

Only occasionally

snapping back with a saucy

or, if I’m really on my game,

withering response.

I recognize it instantly now.

And, most often, instantly regret it as well.

The result is I’m less volatile.

And, maybe more effective.

But, a girl’s gotta have an out.

So, when it’s fight or flight,

I now go into mental

fat storing,

rapid heart beating,

shallow breathing

flight mode.

Under my breath,

I spit things like

“Done. Done. Done.

I’m so done with this.

I’m so over this.

I’m so outta here.”

I rarely actually engage my flight response.

Coaching and leadership training

has taught me

the power and value of

Staying.

Staying in the conversation.

Staying in the relationship.

Staying long enough in the discomfort of the moment

in service of finding the common stake.

Recently, I have been invited to speak at several events

designed primarily for individuals

“in transition”.

I know this because, as I introduce myself,

names are followed with I’m…

“in transition”.

This last delivered with varying degrees of

embarrassment, frustration, finality.

“In transition.”

It lands so heavy between us

I can barely find the strength to lift the conversation.

“In transition.”

The new euphemism for “unemployed”.

I get it.

I just don’t like it.

It leaves me with all the responsibility of probing for something

Interesting, memorable or engaging.

By contrast,

I just returned from a

Worldwide Leadership Conference in New York.

No one was

“In transition”.

Everyone was traveling, writing, volunteering, creating, discovering.

Was everyone financially supporting themselves on the

subject of their introduction?

Not hardly.

To a person, everyone was, however, passionately engaged in projects and programs and dreams that made me want to engage more, learn more, lean in more.

So, my open invitation to you…

Whatever your

“day job” is or isn’t,

find some way

to spend some time

doing something

that moves you to passion when you speak of it.

Then, share that something with

everyone you meet.

You’ll be interesting and we’ll be interested.

I’m a little put off by all the attention social media is getting

I’m tired of the twitter heard ‘round the world that earned Hertz a loyal Avis customer

Or was it the other way around?

As tired as I was/am hearing Starbucks used as the only example of creating a customer experience.

Still, as my friend Matthew has pointed out on many occasions,

I enthusiastically embrace the very trends I mock.

He’s right, of course.

I twitter the trivial details of my coffee-drinking-coaching life

while rolling my eyes at others’ versions of the same.

As a businessperson, I have to say

social media seems to be good for the coaching business.

While Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, et all, claim to connect people,

all this connection seems to be creating

more isolation,

more talking at,

less listening to

and more opportunity to compare yourself —

not just to your immediate peers—but to your peers from grade school on up.

There’s no proof that “more” equals “more better”.

More FB friends doesn’t translate to more fulfillment

More choices don’t help us decide, it fosters indecision.

And, optimizing our searches doesn’t optimize

our life or work.

But, it can’t hurt either.

I love to finish things.

Vacations. Tubes of toothpaste. Conversations. Books.

Relationships, apparently.

I’m playing a game with myself now where I finish all the food in my house

before I let myself buy more.

If you know me, even a little, you will note that this may only take me until dinner.

I generally live like a frat boy (sorry, Ben) with half a grilled cheese sandwich in a takeout box, a jar of pickles and some fish oil that I keep meaning to take in my fridge.

I had to break my own rule and buy milk so I could finish the Nestlé’s Quik that has been in the cabinet for quite some time.

A counselor friend told my ex-husband and me that, because I like to finish things and he likes to do things, we would have compatibility issues.

It’s entirely possible she was right.

For me, the pleasure in the finishing.

I can anticipate like crazy, but when the doing comes, I ready for it to end.

As I’m writing this now, I realize that this is that same issue of staying present.

Present in the moment of conversation, book reading or toothpaste tube squeezing.

Stay.

Bill Davidson hired me as a copywriter

on July 15, 1985

Later, Tom Baer told me Bill said

“She seems like a nice girl, but she won’t last.”

So, I stayed nearly 20 years to prove him wrong.

Bill Davidson died last week.

It was Bill, infinitely more than any business book or leadership course,

who taught me that you can

care passionately and fiercely about the work

and

care passionately and fiercely about the people you work with.

Bill was the first man to swear at me.

Not in front of me – at me.

A practice Jay Farrell took over with equal enthusiasm when he took over the agency.

Don’t worry, I gave it right back.

We yelled. We swore. We fought.

Then, we had a beer.

Or, in Bill’s case, a gin.

Bill created a safe place, a container, for creative conflict to happen

that we took seriously, but (almost) never personally.

For many of us who grew up at Davidson,

we have never felt more cared for or cared about then when we were under

the banner of Davisdon Marketing.

A lifetime of friendships; a legacy of leadership

In loving memory of my dear friend, Bill.

I sometimes wish I could hire someone to tell me how I feel.

Kind of like a personal weather report.

A quick call I could make in the morning and, again,

toward mid-day.

How am I feeling?

I have learned to check in with myself this way,

several times a day.

How am I feeling?

Feeling seems hard.

Thinking seems easy.

And safe. And,natural.

Think about that for a minute.

Really, it’s just the opposite.

Stop thinking for a minute, and feeling is what happens quite naturally

without thought, without effort.

Your feelings are what’s there all along.

Underneath the noise and the indecision and the doubt and the confusion of your thinking.

My clients think all day

and too often try to think their way through our coaching.

Not so fast, buddy!

Thinking will not get you what you want.

In work or life.

You cannot think your way through a significant change of any kind.

Sooner or later, your thinking self is going to ask your feeling self for its opinion.

Your feelings will have known the right answer all along.

All you have to do is quiet down & listen

so they can nudge you into action.

My mother collects angels. Or, used to.

(Note: do not buy her angels. She has plenty.)

We have developed a sort of ritual of me calling her from the car as I’m driving from meeting to meeting.

She’ll ask who I’m seeing and I’ll tell her the name of the potential client or person I’m meeting to do business with.

She then prays/meditates/sources

the person’s name with a positive outcome for me.

Somewhere along the line, she added the extra karmic boost of writing the name or intention on a post-it note and slapping it

on an angel.

Kind of a “while you were out” reminder for the angel to get busy creating miracles on my behalf.

In coaching, we call this “creating a structure”.

A physical, tangible action or symbol that keeps you focused and on course toward your goal.

You may be familiar with the idea of snapping a rubber band around your wrist to break a pesky negative thought pattern.

I love the mental image of my mom’s living room covered with

post-it noted angels!

We closed two last week—a new client for me and a bonus client for a colleague—five so far this month.

I would like to limit my time investments to one-hour increments.

Not interesting after an hour?

I will politely excuse myself.

Do not take this personally.

I attend a lot of events, speakers, meetings, etc.

Most of them do not save the best for last.

Most of them could easily end a half hour earlier than they do.

Or more.

I stay because I’m afraid it will look bad if I leave early.

I stay because I think everyone else is getting value,

so what’s wrong with me?

Then, someone else gets up to leave.

I stare after him or her with longing.

Please take me with you…

Which I think is at least a slightly higher moral ground than looking disapprovingly while internally wishing I had made the move myself.

Much of the time, it’s my fault as well.

A meeting with no real agenda

tends to last longer than it should.

A lunch that could have been a coffee.

A coffee that could have been a 15-minute phone call.

One hour with travel is easily three hours

or five with traffic.

Taking time back will create the space

for possibility & what’s next

to appear in its place.

I had a conversation recently with a potential coaching client, Mark.

Mark was six months into a new position at a new company that had never had that

position before.

He was working 70-hour weeks and

was exhausted, stressed and unhappy.

Think about that for a minute:

He was in a new position with a new company that had never had that position before.

I had to ask:

If you’ve never done this job before and your company has never has this position before,

how do you know it takes 70 hours a week to do?

He didn’t like my question and we didn’t end up coaching together.

The situation has stuck with me, though, because it seems too often we create our own problems.

One way is by collapsing facts and assumptions.

Mark’s co-workers assumed what they thought he should be doing in this new role and gave him project after project to complete.

Mark assumed if they asked, he had to deliver and added each project to his ever-expanding to-do list.

Before long, he was failing at his own work and the work the others gave him.

He was exhausted, stressed and unhappy.

And, that’s a fact.

I do a lot of work in professional/personal development.

Attend seminars, participate in workshops, take courses.

Part continuing education/part hobby.

I have a theory about these programs.

Regardless of the content, if you put people together in a room

and get them to feel something,

Everyone leaves having gotten his/her money’s worth.

We say we want to learn something,

But we really want to feel something.

Education is cheap; genuine emotion is much, much harder to come by.

Last weekend, I took a course with people just like me.

“A life coach. That’s interesting.”

Said the convicted felon and former enforcer for the Gangster Disciples.

“Tell me about being a life coach.”

When it was his turn to talk,

I was tremendously moved and inspired,

not by what he does, but by who he is.

A person who got complete with his past.

Owns it, but doesn’t let it define him.

Who, in the space created by that completion,

leveraged his greatest asset,

the integrity of his word,

and placed it powerfully between inmates and the legal system.

A place where trust and talk fit perfectly.

Education is cheap, sometimes talk is too.

And feeling will always carry the day.

My good friend and former agency partner, Jay Farrell,

used to say (with clear exasperation in his voice)

We need a manifesto!

I never really knew what he meant

and so we never really had one.

Mission statements, vision statements, value propositions

statement of purpose, positioning, taglines.

Check. Check. Check.

Manifesto.

No.

And now, a decade or so later,

I find myself making the same self-plea

with nearly the same tone of exasperation

bordering on desperation

I need a manifesto.

A manifesto is a declaration of intention.

A stake so strong, so unwavering, that all your efforts,

every single thing you think, feel and do

in work and life

snaps to attention and falls in line to support it.

A manifesto.

A reason for being.

What gets you up in the morning?

What keeps you awake at night?

What are you doing? Why are you here?

A manifesto.

Believe in something.

Put a stake in your life and work

and claim it.

Clamor for it.

Desire for it from the very core of who you are.

A manifesto.

I’ll write mine; you write yours.

Declare it—if only to yourself.

Even better if you share it

with the universe.

My work as a coach involves a lot of listening.

Much, much more listening than talking.

This is as it should be.

Listening is good.

The rest of my life, however, should be filled

with more balanced conversation.

Two-way conversation.

A delightful dance of conversation.

I ask you about your job; you ask about my job.

I ask about your family, your weekend plans,

who does your hair, which farmer’s market you frequent.

You respond in kind.

This is not necessarily the case.

Very often I find myself held hostage

by someone else’s interpretation of a conversation.

I tell you everything about me; I ask nothing about you.

My friend, Julia Gorelik (fulfillingfuture.com),

who is also a coach and,

I have to believe, a very good one,

offered this solution.

When you’ve heard enough, simply ask

“What would you like to know about me?”

or “What questions can I answer for you?”

Brilliant.

Even if “Nothing. I would like to keep talking,

thank you.”

is the honest to God answer,

I doubt I will hear that.

Instead, It’s a gentle pointing

that gets the conversation back on track

without making the other person wrong.

No harm. No foul.

No monologue.

Earlier this month I assisted at CTI’s Co-Active Leadership Program.

It’s a 10-month program with four, week-long, in-residence retreats in Northern California.

I completed the program a year ago in April and was invited back to assist.

It was for me, and continues to be, an amazing,

truly life-transforming program that I can’t highly recommend enough.

I volunteered for a lot of reasons:

to immerse myself in the program material again,

be a witness to others’ transformation and

continue my own leadership work,

specifically, practicing leading “from the back of the room”.

In my experience I learned:

It’s hard to be in the back of the room

when you really, really want to be in the front of the room.

After being the mom & the boss for 20 years or so,

the front of the room is actually the more comfortable place to be,

making this assisting thing a good stretch for me.

I also noticed that,

contrary to what my post-college resume touted,

I am no longer

“detail-oriented”.

The experience made me realize how cleverly

I have arranged my life and work to have precious few details to manage.

Showing up big can often carry the day.

I keep an index card stuck in my calendar.

Yes. I keep a paper calendar.

Not still, as in I’ve never gone electronic,

But again, as in it’s my preference.

(Can you tell I’m a little sensitive about this?)

Anyway, I keep an index card stuck in my calendar.

On it is a list of the “titles” that are important to me now

Mom, Friend, Coach, Marathon Runner, Yoga Enthusiast.

I have other roles and other self-designated titles,

but these are the ones that are most important to me now.

I use the list as a sort of North Star to help determine

how I should be spending my time and money.

Taking a random pastry class: no.

Taking a random pastry class with a friend: yes.

Doing a Saturday morning practice run with a coach friend: jackpot!

The list helps keep me focused on the titles that really matter.

I use to have a lot of ego and self-worth wrapped up in being

a “creative”.

Creative Director, VP Creative, Chief Creative Officer.

In rearranging my life, I made this new list as a reminder

that the only titles that really matter are the ones I get to give myself.

May 24, 2009

I’ve been running for about 10 years.

I’ve run four marathons.

Last year I ran two:

Chicago in October; Las Vegas in December.

Then. I stopped. Running. Completely.

From December to May: nothing.

No winter training. No Shamrock Shuffle, no 5Ks.

I didn’t even walk fast.

This year, I plan to run two marathons:

Kansas City and Dublin.

But first, I have to…begin again.

Tom Courry, of The Next Level leadership training,

teaches a new perspective on failure.

Failure isn’t the end, it’s the beginning of trying again.

Starting over.

In a simplistic exercise that had 20 adults trying to get a marble through a tube,

we learned the joy of failing and beginning again

and again and again.

It’s a slightly different take on one of my favorite coaching principles

of changing what’s true.

What’s true is I’m a runner.

What’s also true is I’m a runner taking a break.

A six-month break.

A break that doesn’t officially end until marathon training begins

in June.

Still, runners run.

So, I begin again.

Even slower than usual at first.

Three mile every couple of days or so,

On the lakefront and in all areas of my life,

I begin again.

My daughter graduates from college on Sunday.

I’m getting as many “congratulations” as she is.

I’ve raised my kids as a single mom

since their dad, my husband, died 17 years ago.

I felt this weight most profoundly

when I took Tessa to look at colleges.

Not even when we said good-bye that first night of freshman year were the emotions as full as during the college search.

I felt all the responsibility of watching our daughter make her first

important decision (mostly) on her own.

And, none of the joy of having her dad to share it with.

For me, it was too much for one parent to do well.

But, I did; we did.

A lopsided family of three.

I was overcome with sadness and emotion that day.

And then again, two years later

when I made the same trips with my son.

Important events that mark time.

Tessa asks more questions about her dad lately.

Mostly, for reasons neither of us know, on the car rides back and forth to school.

Cherished & hilarious conversations. Side-by-side. Looking forward.

I’ll miss those drives and, at the same time,

look forward to what’s next

for all of us.

By now, I think everyone knows the power of changing

“but” to “and”, as in

“I love you AND that Laz-y-Boy has to go.”

Put your “but” in there and it takes away all the ground

you’ve gained with the “I love you” part.

Words have power.

And the power to em-power you, if used purposefully.

Take a look at this one:

“I’m always late.”

Or, as Rick Carson’s Taming Your Gremlin suggests,

“Until now, my tendency has been to be late.”

The former is an absolute with no room for change.

The later leaves space for you to decide to do things differently.

Starting now.

I listen closely to my clients for any thought that begins

with “I just need to…”

Any time you “just need to” you can pretty well bet

you’re not going to.

It’s almost always coming from an external source.

Think about the last time someone gave you advise.

Did that advise start with “You just need to…”?

Now, if you change that need to a want…

Wants come from an internal source, are grounded in emotion

and much more likely to be acted upon.

Wants are empowering; needs are overpowering.

Enough said.

There’s a new excuse in town;

it’s called “taking care of myself.”

I’ve noticed a measurable up tick in the number of times friends, colleagues, acquaintances have cancelled a previously scheduled commitment with a variation on the following theme:

“I’m going to stay home and give myself some much-needed TLC”

(and here’s the part that really gets me)

I know you’ll understand.”

It has become the excuse that can’t be argued with.

What kind of woman would I be if I weren’t in full support of my sister getting her me-time on?

And, I do support this. Really, I do.

I’ve been taking care of me since before it was cool.

I am the poster girl for me-time.

I’ll even trade you some me time for we time.

Women should take care of themselves.

But how about if we just work it into our daily life, without fuss, like using change.

No special accommodations needed.

And, while we’re at it, how about if we just say no when we mean no.

Not yes-with-a-mental-note-to-back-pedal-later.

I support self-care right up to the time you have already made a commitment to some one or something else.

Then, self-care is just self-ish.

I promised I wouldn’t blog about Facebook,

Even writing that makes me cringe.

Yet, I have to say, I’ve found lost high school friends on Facebook.

In talking with these friends, I noticed we all have feelings of

not fitting in.

This isn‘t surprising about high school—who fits in in high school?—

but we were talking about now.

In our own grown up lives.

I’ve always wondered what happened to my peer group.

It seems everyone else is deeply connected to packs of friends from

grad school, fraternity, family, book club, work,

while I feel like I’m floating.

I bounce around these circles, but I don’t feel tethered.

This bothered me until I was soul typed through an organization called

New Equations (www.newequations.com)

I’m a soul type 6.

Among other things, soul type 6s often feel like

“no one gets me”.

Exactly.

Finally, someone understands me.

But, not really.

It’s not like I hang out with my fellow 6s.

I think this feeling of disconnection comes from having too many choices,

too many ways to connect.

Nowhere is this more evident than on Facebook where you can join a group whose sole connection can be anything from mini marshmallows to God.

I am a serious social coffee drinker.

Until recently, my motto was

Starbucks: twice a day, every day since 1989.

Then, like so many things, I was done.

Done. Done. Done.

Not with coffee, but with Starbucks.

Even as they close stores and I’m not sure Instant Starbucks is a good idea,

I love the brand from a marketing perspective.

I just don’t love the coffee anymore.

My abrupt rejection of their coffee exactly coincides with their drop in revenue.

I don’t think I’m entirely to blame.

The smell of Starbucks actually makes me sick now.

About a year ago, I transferred my alliance to Noble Tree on Clark.

I spend a lot of time working there.

It draws a college crowd from DePaul and,

depending on the barista, features music that is actually painful to listen to.

So bad, that I sometimes have to leave.

Now, more often than not, I’m over at Peet’s on North Avenue.

Peet’s is more about classic music than ear-itation;

more New York Times than The Onion.

The coffee’s (slightly) better too, but that’s really less important.

I feel hipper at Noble Tree and smarter at Peet’s.

Lately, I find smart rich and satisfying.

Apparently, I am suffering, not from identity theft, but from identity confusion.

I went to my bank last week to do some personal banking.

When my banker, Abe, asked me to sign something I noticed my social securitynumber was incorrect.

Two tedious—but not unpleasant (thanks, Abe!)–hours later

we determined that somehow

my son’s social security number got mixed up with mine.

All my banking, mortgage, credit reports, etc., seem to be in my name with my son’s social security number.

This is good news only because I am pretty sure I can stick him with the mortgage.

But then, he will probably also want the house.

No one knows how this happened or when,

only that I need to make many, many phone calls and provide many, many forms of identification and contact many, many financial institutions to get this straightened out.

My daughter declared that I have effectively stolen my own identity.

I like this.

“Take that, bad guys, beat you to it.”

Nothing criminal happened, I remind myself frequently throughout the process.

And, what an opportunity to get all my financial affairs in order while I methodically prove I am exactly who I have been all along.

When I left the agency I helped build and co-owned for nearly 20 years, I spent the next five chasing “what’s next.”

What finally set me on the right course (helped by my coach at the time, Rich Hill) was the realization that what was missing was a champion.

At the agency, I had Jay Farrell.

Jay was my champion long before I knew what that meant or could articulate what he had done—and continues to do—for my career

and my life.

It’s still hard for me to put into words.

I started asking people: who is your champion?

This led to emotional answers and interpretations that formed the foundation for a coaching/communication model I developed and present as a workshop.

In the workshop, I define the differences between champion, mentor, cheerleader & friend.

I hold the belief that by identifying these players, and knowing how and when to access each one, we will be heard and understood by precisely the people who can help us move forward in our lives and work.

My next workshop is March 28th at Flourish Studios in Chicago. I would love to see you there. For more information and to register: hotcoffeecoaching.com/workshops.

My coaching tends to roll in themes. This week’s theme fell under the heading of “transparency.”

In coaching, transparency or being transparent is about “saying what’s so.”

I use it a lot when I’m nervous or don’t know what to say.

Recently, I gave a presentation on Leadership to 30 executives.

As (way too) often is the case, I wished I were better prepared.

While the host read my introduction, my head swirled crazily around my lack of preparation.

When it was my turn to talk, I stood firmly and said,

“I’m wishing I were better prepared. But, I’m not. So, let’s just see what happens.”

The audience smiled and laughed and the presentation went exceedingly well from there.

There’s tremendous value in getting out what’s already in the room.

This week, client after client talked about not knowing what to say.

Or, expressed fear of saying the wrong thing

or making a mistake

or letting someone down.

Great, I say, why don’t you start there: say what’s so.

It’s like the horrible waitress who tells you it’s her first day.

Your perspective shifts from annoyance to compassion.

You’re on her side because she had the courage to be transparent.

I’ve been to the grocery store with my friend, Chris, easily 10 times this week.

I’m visiting him in LA.

We’ve known each other more than 15 years.

What’s remarkable about going to the grocery store so many times in a week is that each time he asked if I wanted to come along, I did.

Each time Chris dropped off or picked up his daughter at school, I went along too.

Not because these are particularly interesting or enjoyable activities, but because everything is more fun when you’re hanging out with someone you really love.

What I love about Chris is that we make each other laugh and we share serious and important thoughts, fears, ideas and plans about our lives with each other.

And we seem to spend an unusual amount of time together not talking at all.

It’s that easy.

And, we don’t fight over checks.

If someone says “I’ll get it”; the other says “thank you.”

It’s that easy.

We don’t talk or email all that often—maybe four or six times–throughout the year but, like any solid friendship, when we’re together, we pick up exactly where we left off.

It’s that easy and it’s that perfect.

Was the The Clash talking to me in their 1980s hit song?

Am I really quoting The Clash?

If you’ve been following this blog, you know I started voice lessons a month ago.

The idea was to do something that made me uncomfortable in service of personal growth

and, on a more basic level, to have fun.

I like to sing and wanted to get better at it.

In four lessons, I went from nervous anticipation to exhilaration to disappointment to ambivalence.

So, now what?

My leadership training keeps me staying through the rough spots.

My coaching teaches me the importance of not saying yes when I mean no.

So, do I stay or do I go?

I committed to two of my coaching groups to sing a song at the end of my 8-week training.

Do I have to keep that commitment regardless of whether or not I finish the course?

One thing I’ve learned through my own coaching is the value of getting quiet and listening to that voice that already knows the right answer.

The voice that says:

I’m done.

It has announced itself at the end of jobs, relationships, friendships.

Done. Done. Done.

Voice lessons: done.

It pains me to admit this, but I recently wrote an email about someone and accidentally sent it to that person.

You know what I’m talking about.

Nothing negative and nothing confidential.

My intentions were good.

A colleague asked if I knew anything about Felicity’s company.

I did.

Information indirectly gathered from a variety of ways our business paths are crossed.

In my effort to be telegraphic, I used some casual language that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise used.

Then, to quickly check spelling of Felicity’s name, I entered it above in the “cc” field, typed it in below and hit: send!

Later than day I received the following email…from Felicity.

“Did you mean to send this to me?”

Before my emotional “fight or flight” instincts could kick in, my coaching skills took over: ownership and transparency.

“Of course not. I responded, “My apologies.”

“No problem. We’ve all been there.” Felicity replied.

I waited a week, two weeks for any one of the several people we have in common to mention what an idiot I am.

Nothing.

Not only didn’t Felicity take offense, she didn’t take the opportunity to embarrass me further. That’s grace. And that’s Felicity…taking the high road.

Relationships of all kinds end. Often badly. More often sadly.

Two of mine ended recently. One very recently.

Marianne Williamson’s interpretation of The Course in Miracles holds the belief that there is only one kind of love and that love can take many forms from friendship to romantic love to love for mankind, etc.

From that one place of pure love, we simply shift from one relationship form to another.

Easier said than done.

One of these two relationships shifted from friendship to romance to friendship (I’m leaving out several rounds over several years of not-so-clean shifts for space consideration!) to purposeful hurt to bad/sad ending.

Although it may be too early to tell, the other seemingly has all the makings of a love-based shift.

A mutual willingness to try on something different–even if it doesn’t fit right away.

Integrity around what is true for each of us

Respect for where we are and where we’ve been in our own lives and loves.

A genuine enjoyment of each other and, in spite of it all, a playful attraction.

Ask for 100% of what you want, 100% of the time and stay around long enough to negotiate the difference.

Joe Ensign teaches Budokon Yoga at Equinox. Budokon is a combination of martial arts and more traditional yoga poses.

I don’t prefer Budokon, but I like Joe.

I like Joe because of the intensity and lightness he brings to yoga.

I like to think he’s that way with everything he does. And, because Joe says:

How you do anything is how you do everything.

This sentiment may be Yogi 101, but it was new to me.

It fits with the coaching I do. I rarely refer to myself as a “life coach”, yet what I practice is really “whole life” coaching, sometimes thinly disguised as Executive Coaching or Business Coaching. Meaning, whatever shows up, shows up.

It’s always the client’s agenda and it doesn’t really matter if we talk about work or life or love.

It’s all connected.

Part of my work is to help clients see that connection–which isn’t always all that evident when you’re living in the middle of it.

I’m always a little amused when people say:

“I’m a completely different person at work.”

Really?

I doubt it. And, if you are, what’s that about?

Think about it:

How you do anything is how you do everything.

One of the principles of co-active coaching is called “Balance”. I always thought it should be called “perspectives.” In it, I learned to explore the perspective of “everything is true…until it’s not.”

I have been practicing yoga once a week for five years.

What’s true: I have NEVER been able to get yoga in my life more than that one day a week.

I have been absolutely religious about that one day—so religious, in fact, that Monday night yoga is held at my church…with my pastor on the next mat.

It’s doesn’t get much more religious than that.

But, still.

Once a week was all I could do.

And that was true. Until it wasn’t.

To change this truth, I made a commitment to myself to practice yoga every day for 30 days.

Instantly, it is no longer true that I practice yoga once a week.

What’s true: I practice yoga every single day.

I’m on about day 18 and counting…

To make sure it sticks, I asked someone to help me hold accountability around my commitment. That means, someone is standing by, checking in, ready to celebrate my success or mock my failure—either of which will be equally motivating.

On New Year’s Day, I was up earlier than most people, I think.

No matter what time I get to bed, I’m up around 6 a.m., walking my dog and waiting for The Noble Tree to open for coffee.

This morning, I was on the other side of town, at Peet’s.

On my way in, a Streetwise vendor wished me a Happy New Year and asked if I wanted to buy Streetwise.

No thanks, I said, without stopping or looking up.

“Well then,” he countered. “How about a large jasmine green tea with four Splendas and a blueberry scone?”

I stopped and laughed.

You got it.

His request was so specific and delivered with such what-do-I-have-to-lose confidence, that I was charmed.

I not only couldn’t say no—I wanted to say yes.

And, talk about an up-sell!

I’m told the late Laura Witworth, one of the founders of The Coaches Training Institute, taught the following: Ask for 100% of what you want, 100% of the time and (here’s the important part!) stay around long enough to negotiate the difference.

I’m resolving to ask for more of what I want, if not all the time, at least more of the time.

Last week, I sent the following email to my children:

Subject: Mandatory Family Meeting

Message: Plan to be home Monday night. We’re putting up the goddamn Christmas tree. Together. As a family. I mean it.

We are three.

I sometimes feel we lack the critical mass to be a family.

But mostly it suits us.

We share a love of wit, sarcasm and verbal banter.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, there was a moment when my husband was seriously worried that we would somehow, inexplicably, end up with a humorless child.

What if we have children and they’re not funny?

I hesitated for just a second before responding.

How could that be possible?

It wasn’t and they are.

I’m reminded of that conversation tonight, admiring our marginally decorated and slightly off-center tree.

We drove to the tree lot, walked up to the first tree, looked at each other, and said:

I’m good with this one.

Yep. She’s a beaut.

Are we good? Good. Grab it and let’s get out of here.

We laughed over our particular brand of humor and later told stories that we knew each other would get.

We are three. And it suits us.

In January, I start voice lessons. I’m really excited about the idea of the lessons. Yet, every time I think about the actual singing part. Out loud. In front of people. It gives me pause.

Rick Tamlyn (thebiggergame.com) calls this the “GULP!” stage.

That place between “idea” and “action” that makes you swallow hard.

I’m taking voice lessons because I love to sing recreationally, but I don’t know if I’m any good. I don’t know because in the seventh grade choir, after a particularly rousing version of some now forgotten Christmas song, Melanie Hannah said, loud enough for everyone to hear:

“Julie, you were so SHARP on that song, NO ONE could sing on key!”

I just want to know.

I want to know if I should be walking around saying, “Oh no, I don’t sing.”

Or, “Hey, let me get that National Anthem for you.”

Coaching has taught me to go for the discomfort. The conversation you don’t want to have is exactly the one to have; the idea that creates the “gulp” is probably the one with which to move forward.

So, thanks, Melanie, for setting in motion this particular state of discomfort a couple of decades ago.

I met Jamie Damato amid the typical “furry” of activity at her downtown office. Dogs swirled at our feet as she buzzed me in. Jamie took my hand and drew me toward her. With calm, connected eye contact and a steady voice, she said:

“There’s a big, white dog at your feet. Don’t look at him.”

She stood there holding my hand and holding my eyes for longer than is socially comfortable for a first business-type meeting or a meeting of any kind, for that matter. Yet, instead of feeling uncomfortable or scared (there was, after all, a big, white dog at my feet who apparently did not like to be looked at), I was calm and relaxed, like I had fallen into something really special.

This is a woman who knows how to get quiet

when quiet is what’s called for.

Jamie is the owner and creative genius behind Animalsense, a multi-functional brand that extends far beyond the dog training for which she is known. I liked her immediately and not just because I learned something important from her that day.

This is how she connects with dogs, I thought.

And, guess what? It works with people too.

There’s a popular column in the back of Runner’s World that has famous people answering “why I run”.

I’m not famous and no one asked, but here’s one reason why I run.

On Sunday, I ran the Las Vegas marathon.

From miles 12 to 22 or 23 or so, I ran with a youngish man, originally from Guatemala, now living in LA.

We fell into pace and started talking as we ran.

This was his 20th marathon; my fourth.

He ran track in high school—not very well, he said–but enough to kick start his interest in running. At mile 14, we talked about his love of cooking and he detailed a recipe for lasagna he memorized working in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant. At mile 16, we talked about his girlfriend and whether or not they should move in together. At mile 17, he told me had “visions” since he was a young boy. At mile 20, he told me how his father was murdered three years ago on Thanksgiving.

I can think of no other place in life or work that intimacy happens so quickly and so easily as on the path of a really long run.

Last year I attended a year-long Co-Active Leadership program offered through The Coaches Training Institute (CTI). The opportunity had come up more than once and it wasn’t until my own coach, Helen House, said about the program:

“Every one of your relationships will change”

Sign me up.

The Co-Active Leadership program truly was—as corny as it sounds—a life changing experience.

One of the outcomes I was hoping for was deeper, richer relationships.

What I got was girlfriends.

Those really good girlfriends that everyone else seems to have had since third grade.

The kind that you can call 12 times in one day—or not for a month—and pick up right where you left off.

When I returned home from the first retreat, I was afraid the friendships wouldn’t stick. The next day, I talked to Kristine for about three hours.

For more than a year we’ve called and cried and laughed and emailed across four states and two countries.

We talked today and it pained me to have to get off the phone early to make an appointment.

The combined intelligence, emotional bandwidth, humor and beauty is awe-inspiring. Although, I seem to be the only one with any fashion sense.

I have a thing I do on Thanksgiving that I have done for at least 15 years. I call the people in my life who really matter to me. I call and thank them for being part of my life. Some of these people I have been calling for years, like Joe; others got a call for the first time, like Reed.

I noticed that I now know more coaches than anything else. Lots of calls and emails flying around these last few days. Connections that are full of gratitude, thanks and appreciation for having each other in our lives.

Coaches are especially good as expressing gratitude. I think this is because our work with our own coaches has us tuned in to what’s really important.

When I transitioned from marketing to coaching, I was afraid I would lose all my friends if we didn’t work together any more. And, I was afraid I wouldn’t make any new friends.

Silly on both counts.

My friends are still my friends. And now, I have a whole new group of friends who are mostly coaches.

This Thanksgiving and always, I am grateful for my family, colleagues, clients and friends, old and new.

One of my very favorite coaching principles that I immediately incorporated into my own life is “claiming.” You’re seeing evidence of it right now. About a year ago, I saw an ad in CS magazine. CS, or Chicago Social, is a stunningly beautiful publication—so thick with upscale advertising—that it’s free! The ad was for BatesMeron Sweet Design. I so loved their ad, I went to their website. I so loved their website, I picked up the phone & asked for a meeting. At our first meeting, I so admired and adored co-owners, Rebecca Bates and Shachar Meron, that I “claimed” them. Silently. I claimed them, as part of my life & work—with no idea or agenda as to what form that would take.

Today, they are clients, colleagues & friends. My new website is brought to you by BatesMeron Sweet Design.

Try it for yourself in your own life and work. Ask for what you want. And it’s okay to want a lot. Look around. What is it that you want? What or whom do you want to claim? And, if you want to claim BatesMeron too, go for it! There’s plenty of their good work to go around.