The Dilemma Zone

For most of my life, I identified as a risk-averse planner. I would carefully and cautiously take into account all of the permutations of possibility before taking any step, especially a step that seemed risky. 

Sometimes, in the process of weighing all the best and worst case scenarios, I would even forget that the whole purpose of doing so was to take action. In these moments I would stay frozen in space and time, frustrated by the situation I was in but terrified of making any moves. 

So, by the time I made the move to quit my job and start my own business, it’s safe to say I thought I had weighed out all of the things that could possibly go wrong. I inched up towards the leap in front of me armed with backup plans A-Z… and then another few to spare just in case. 

It felt as sure as sure could be.

And then, two and a half months later, a global pandemic hit. 

(Didn’t see that one coming!)

While my business survived, and is now even thriving, I often reflect back on the scary decision I made to leap in the first place. Had I known that a global pandemic was even a possibility, I don’t think I would have ever left my job in the first place. But to be honest, if I hadn’t left my job, I don’t think I would have fared the last couple of years as well as I actually did. 

The point of me sharing this isn’t about what my life could have looked like if I didn’t start my business, or even what my life looks like with my business today. The point of my sharing this is to shed light on the moment where I stepped into the highly risky, highly unwieldy, highly unknown point of no return. 

Or, as they would call it in traffic engineering - The Dilemma Zone.

The Dilemma Zone

Something that people often find fascinating is that my father is a traffic and transportation engineer. This means that when my friends openly muse about why traffic lights work the way they do or an intersection is designed a certain way, I usually have at least half an answer for them after a lifetime of crosswalk commentary in my household.

Something that I personally find fascinating about traffic engineering is that while it is a profession that depends on the accuracy of math, it is also a profession that directly deals with the intricacies of human behavior. 

Streets are designed for cars, yes. But they are also designed for the drivers of those cars - and that’s where the real work comes in. Because no matter how great the algorithm is, humans will always bring the factor of unpredictability. 

Nothing showcases this better than The Dilemma Zone.

I am not a traffic engineer, so my fun name for The Dilemma Zone is The Damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t Zone. No matter what you call it, here’s what it is. 

The Dilemma Zone is the area of time and space leading up to a stop light where, even if you are following the law to the letter, you will essentially end up in a lose/lose situation. It occurs as the light is turning yellow. 

If you stop in The Dilemma Zone, you risk causing damage to yourself, your car, or the cars behind you.

If you keep going in The Dilemma Zone, you risk getting caught in an intersection while the light turns red, therefore breaking the law. 

But here’s the thing.

Even though there are engineering measures that can be taken to diminish the size of The Dilemma Zone, it can never be eradicated altogether. No matter how well an intersection is designed, the moment of risk - even if just for a millisecond - will still exist.

Why?

Well, because even within the confines of driving law, human behavior is simply too unpredictable. We all come preset with different vision capabilities, different response times, different reactions. Additionally, our individual behaviors change on a daily basis based on our moods, our sleep levels, and about a billion other factors. 

So even in the very certain, very precise, very mathematically driven world of traffic engineering, there is still this gap of uncertainty. 

And as I asked my father when he explained this concept to me - isn’t that how it goes in life too?

Mitigation vs. Erasure

No matter where we are trying to go in life, the road will eventually come to a point where we have to face our own version of The Dilemma Zone. You will know that you are there when the risk of staying put seems to be as much of a loss as the risk of moving forward.

In my experience, many humans try to stay put until they can absolutely guarantee that there is no risk or uncertainty ahead. Much like in traffic engineering, this is an impossible exercise. 

Remember, the risk can be mitigated, but it can never be erased altogether.

Life is risky and unpredictable. Even the perfect plans and the perfect timing can quickly become swept up in the new reality of any moment.

So, if that’s the case, how do we mitigate our own personal Dilemma Zones? 

Well, I would suggest that we look back to traffic engineering for the answers.

One way to mitigate The Dilemma Zone in traffic is to put sensors not just at the stop bar of an intersection, but to also place sensors leading up to the stop bar. This allows small, last minute adjustments in the traffic signal to be made. 

In our lives, when it’s time to make a change, take a risk, or leap, it can be tempting to get very all or nothing. This actually makes any movement that much more risky because it places so much weight on one moment or one decision. 

In reality, we have so much more ability to fine tune and adjust that we often give ourselves credit for. Turning a large decision into a series of medium or small sized experiments can create the ability for nimble pivots rather than huge course corrections. And ultimately, this can make any leap feel a bit less risky.

Finally, a big factor of mitigating The Dilemma Zone comes down to trusting the process.

Haven’t you ever been at an intersection where the traffic lights are broken? People still figure out how to make it work, even if it’s momentarily messy. 

For the past decade, I lived in Miami where people have a tendency to juice every last second out of a yellow light, oftentimes meaning they are still lingering in a rush hour intersection while the light turns red. Do the other cars just plow forward full speed when their light turns green? Of course not. It’s not perfect, and it’s legally ambiguous, but most of the time, disaster doesn’t ensue.

Trusting the process when it comes to The Dilemma Zone in life is ultimately about trusting yourself. Trusting that your awareness and intelligence won’t suddenly turn off tomorrow. Trusting that you will see a huge problem if it presents itself and that you will do something about it.

Will it possibly be uncomfortable or messy? Sure. But life is uncomfortable and messy.

You’ve brought yourself this far. There’s no reason to believe you won’t be able to get yourself through whatever comes next.

Cowritten with my father, and expert all things traffic, Fayssal Husseini
www.husseinidesigngroup.com

The Hypocrisy Conundrum

There is a pattern within our human behavior that I have long been equally amused and stumped by. 

My amusement is sourced from the universality and predictability of the setup. In nearly every human life I have been around long enough, I have encountered this duality play out in real time. I include myself in this list.

My confusion, or perhaps it might more aptly be labeled a curiosity, is a question of where to go from here. Because, once I point this out to you, you will see it everywhere you go as I do too. And while you may feel excited to have spotted it, and may even share in on the aforementioned feeling of humor, once that all subsides, the question of what to do with this new awareness will still remain.

What is the awareness to which I am referring? I think it’s time for me to share it with you now. It consists of two seemingly contradictory truths - item one and item two. Perhaps, for the sake of clarity we should give it a name, even if only temporary. 

Can you tell I’m stalling?

I don’t know why. 

Let’s get to it.

The Hypocrisy Conundrum 

1. Most people have a distaste for hypocrisy in others.

2. Most people want to believe that they themselves can change and grow.

How do these two statements create a conundrum, or even a pattern? Perhaps you have spotted it already, and perhaps you have not. 

To highlight the interplay between these two truths, I will now share two stories - one seemingly more inconsequential than the other - to highlight what I mean and why I’m bringing this up.

French Fries For Days

First - a light, mildly trivial story.

I recently went on a trip to Paris with a friend where one our collective goals was to eat a lot of great food. And we did! We ate all kinds of cuisines and all kinds of food within the french cuisine. It was delightful and adventurous. 

However, this friend also shared with me an anecdote about his childhood that, given the setting, actually really surprised me.

As it turns out, he had been an extremely pick eater in his youth - to the point where for a few months when he was seven years old, he consumed exclusively french fries.

Exclusively french fries! This is not so much odd behavior for a seven year old, but for this person in front of me chowing down on escargot, this bit of information seemed so strange. 

I started wondering - how did he grow out of being such a picky eater. Did it happen naturally? Was there something that pushed him to change? How quickly did this shift occur? 

None of these questions were really of any consequence to me. All of this was so far in the past. But it was fun to marvel at the change and growth that had occurred in the first portion of one’s lifetime. 

I wonder what his 7 year old self would say if he saw the food being eaten today. 

Growth can be so fun and so light, can’t it? 

I’m sure you have things that you’ve grown out of over time as well. 

I’m going to refrain from dissecting too much here, because in such a fun story, there is little to seriously comment on. But why I shared this example will make much more sense after my next story.

I can’t believe THEY said THAT

I think that it’s an interesting experience to witness change in a fellow adult human. Unlike with children, the changes we experience as adults tend to begin and unfold mostly within the mind’s perspective. We may not realize a monumental change is unfolding before our eyes.

Additionally, as adults - in our professional and our personal lives - so many more of our words and our actions have consequences that take on their own journeys far beyond our control. 

For example, there may have been a time where you were facing great personal difficulties with little to no healthy coping skills. However, you may have also been a manager or boss during that time period. Since then, you may have grown significantly in the areas of stress and emotional management. Your reality has changed. 

However, your possibly unhealthy actions towards your employees at that time became a part of their reality as well as yours. And no matter how much growing you do, their reality will continue to play out under the realm of their control. Even if that reality includes a past version of you.

It’s complicated.

Anyways, story #2:

A few months ago, I had a client come to me in a lot of upset around a post they had just seen online from a coach they used to work with years ago.

This coach was touting the importance of neutral communication and this client was enraged. 

Why? Well, when this client had worked with this coach, they experienced the coach’s communication as anything but neutral. They had tangible example after tangible example of this coach taking things personally, and infusing their own anxiety and anger into the mix. 

I understood the client’s frustration. For sure I did. They felt that the reality of their experience with this coach was being directly challenged or contradicted. 

Their initial instinct was to label this coach a hypocrite.

“How could THEY say THAT when they do the complete opposite? It’s so hypocritical.”

While I conceded that the statement and behavior may technically be hypocritical, I wondered to my client if that was ultimately such a bad thing. This client had spent so much time verbally yearning for this previous coach to see the error of their past ways and to grow in their communication skills. 

If this coach had grown, or was even in the process of growing, wouldn’t their new realizations and growths read as hypocritical to this client?

My client agreed and then quickly confessed the real issue at hand.

“If this coach has grown, why am I still stuck with the fallout of their past behavior? That’s not fair.”

My client was angry. And rightfully so. But that is, dear reader, a conversation to bring up here another day.

For now, I will complete this story, and move on to my point.

Hypocrisy - The Likely Scapegoat

Most people have a distaste for hypocrisy in others.

Most people want to believe that they themselves can change and grow.

But here’s the thing.

The act of growth is inherently hypocritical to the past versions of yourself.

In order to evolve, the kid who said they would never eat anything but french fries needs to reach for that piece of broccoli for the very first time.

In order to do better, the coach whose own unhealthy passive aggressive tendencies bled into their client experience needs to concretely recognize and adopt what healthy communication tactics look like. 

Am I saying that all hypocrisy means that a person is growing? That it’s actually always a good thing? Absolutely not. No way. No.

But what I am saying is that often times we make hypocrisy the issue when the real issue may be a million other more subterranean, insidious things.

We may say that the big issue with that politician is that they are hypocritical, when the real issue is their consistency of hypocrisy, their unwillingness to take responsibility for their actions, and their flippant disregard for the effects of their behaviors. 

We may say that the big issue with that online coach is that they are hypocritical, when the real issue is their purposefully predatory business practices, their unwillingness to hear any critique, and their blatant use of cult-like mind control tactics alongside flat out lies. 

Hypocrisy can of course, be an issue. But I want to propose it is oftentimes not THE issue. And to act like it is the only problem essentially perpetuates the problem itself.

When existing alongside humility, work ethic, constant self examination, and radical responsibility - momentary hypocrisy can oftentimes be a sign of growth and evolution, which is something we all want, at least for ourselves.

The issue is, when we see any and every form of flip flopping or perceived hypocrisy as immediately bad, we close ourselves off from the greater context. We are more likely to stunt our own growth and engage in acts of destructive hypocrisy ourselves. We are less likely to see the issue beneath the hypocrisy and be able to affect real change.

So what then, does one even do with this?

I will speak frankly. 

When you are on the receiving end of someone else’s hypocrisy, it can feel like a real pain in the ass.

By all means, feel that annoyance. I do! But then, if you’re willing…

I implore you to extend compassion to any part of you that is terrified of being perceived as a hypocrite. If you are growing, it’s going to happen at some point or another, even if only for a minute.

I wonder if it might be possible to investigate even further, from a place of more calm, why exactly that person’s hypocrisy has really gotten to you. We are surrounded by hypocrisy. We contain multitudes. What is it about this particular situation that really has you going.

What I am endeavoring to point out with this conundrum is that when we reach hypocrisy, label it as the ultimate enemy in a huff, and stop critically reflecting on ourselves or others at that point - we miss the whole iceberg in front of us. 

We make it scary for ourselves to change our minds. We preemptively judge what is occurring based on limited information. We climb upon our high horse only to realize it is a statue, and we can’t actually even go anywhere on it.

I’m not suggesting that you eliminate the distaste you feel for hypocrisy. But if you, like so many of us, want to live in a world where change and growth is possible, I encourage you to cozy up to that distaste. Get comfortable with it. Ask it questions. 

And see what else it has to teach you.

Ableism in Coaching: and the reckless rise of intuitive coaching

If you ever find yourself traveling to Antarctica, or if you spend enough time on TikTok, you will come to know about a part of the world called the Drake Passage. The Drake Passage is located at the point where the Atlantic and Pacific oceans meet head on - with no influence from any land mass. 

Sometimes, these oceans join together seamlessly, and the water is as still as a lake. But other times, the Drake Passage can produce destructively volatile currents that have caused many deaths over the years. 

Why am I speaking about the ocean? Well, I think the Drake Passage is a fitting metaphor for the confluence of two sentiments that tend to lead the coaching industry:

1. Coaching is a skill and the profession of coaching is a skills-based practice.

2. Coaching is a way of being and the profession of coaching is an intuitive and presence-based practice.

I believe that both of these statements are true, and furthermore, I believe that when both of these thoughts are held with careful and consistent examination, they can produce a style of coaching that is magnificently vast and beautifully centered in stillness. 

Unfortunately, the reality is often that these two sentiments are held as separate, opposing truths - each one wielded whenever is most convenient to the coach. For example, a coach may tout coaching as an exclusively skills-based practice when trying to sell a program on skills for other coaches…but will then claim coaching is a purely intuitive process when trying to justify why their fees are so high.

The result of this common see-sawing flip-flopping is an increasingly unsteady, unsafe landscape in which disabled people tend to be on the front lines of the damage caused.

What I want to talk about today is the second point - the point that coaching is a way of being and that the profession of coaching is an intuitive and presence-based practice - and how standing in intuition as the product can overlook and undercut a large subset of our society. 

The disabled perspective

In order to understand the shortcomings of glorifying purely intuition-based coaching, especially when it comes to the concept of ableism, I think it’s worth taking a look at some of the common sentiments disabled people express about the realities of moving through our world on an average day.

A behavior that is incredibly common in disabled people - both those with a visible disability and those with an invisible disability - is camouflaging, or masking. We tend to hear the word masking most correlated to those with neurodivergencies, whereas camouflaging tends to embrace the larger disability spectrum, but in both situations, the disabled person is essentially hiding parts of their reality in order to blend in more seamlessly with the surrounding world. 

Camouflaging or masking differs from typical ‘people pleasing behavior’ because it stems from the realities of navigating through a primarily ableist world and is built from years of lived experience as to what happens when that camouflage or mask is dropped. 

Additionally, a large portion of disabled people may not consciously know that they are camouflaging or masking - and may not consciously be able to stop. This behavior is not something that seems entirely separate from the person displaying it. It is a behavior that has become very closely interwoven with, and may very closely mimic the person themselves.

Finally, and this is a longer conversation for another day, what many disabled people know, along with many marginalized groups, is that authenticity is a privilege in this world. Does this mean that if you are disabled or a member of a traditionally marginalized group that you can’t be authentic? Absolutely not. 

But the same way that we acknowledge that being born into financial wealth is a privilege, and that those born into financial poverty can become wealthy later in life but are not playing with the same deck of cards as the person with generational wealth - those who are able-bodied, able-minded, neurotypical, and without substantial trauma naturally experience a greater amount of privilege when it comes to being able to live authentically than those who aren’t. 

And while denying that truth is unhelpful, much of the coaching and self-help industries actively ignore or deny the very real, very felt dynamics of the privilege around being yourself.

Back to coaching

So why does this matter to the conversation around intuitive coaching?

Well, if we look at intuitive coaching as a simplistic, all encompassing approach, its success is predicated on the coach’s ability to navigate their own intuition. 

But intuition does not exist in a vacuum. Intuition exists cozily alongside a person’s emotions, ego, implicit biases, and general life context. 

For example, most coaches are recovering people pleasers. Most people drawn to any industry that sets out to help others are recovering people pleasers. The ego of a people pleaser often asks the question, “Am I doing a good job?”

So, if I’m a coach using only my intuition to guide my craft, and the client in front of me is not visibly responding in the way I had expected to my comment/question/process, my ego might start to puff up and become worried that I’m not doing a good enough job. 

But maybe instead of it sounding like that in my head, it sounds more like my intuition is saying that the other person is ‘closed off and unwilling to be their authentic selves.’ 

That sounds better, doesn’t it? At least for the ego it does. But for the client, not so much.

If that example sounds convoluted to you, I don’t know what to say except that it’s really not. It, and many other examples like it are so incredibly common and the damage that gets done often times remains hidden or comes out many years later in some other therapist or coach’s office. 

Tying this all back to ableism

As you can see this conversation around intuitive coaching is hefty enough on its own without the factor of disability. But mix in the different perspectives that disability brings, the extra layer of camouflaging and masking, the implicit biases, and the trauma responses - and haphazardly ‘feeling’ your way into coaching a disabled person will, best case scenario, be off-putting to them. Worst case scenario, you will feed into a trauma loop that they may not even know is there, creating all sorts of issues for both of you down the line.

So, what do we do?

Well, like I said at the beginning, I believe that both of these statements are true:

1. Coaching is a skill and the profession of coaching is a skills-based practice.

2. Coaching is a way of being and the profession of coaching is an intuitive and presence-based practice.

I hope that if you are a coach, you learn to find the balance point between these two realities, not only when it is convenient to you as a coach, but also when it is most uncomfortable.  

And also, while your ego may not like this, please, please, please understand that your ‘intuition’, no matter how strong, is being filtered through the limitations of your human experience. I say this as someone who fully believes in the power of intuition, and has had experiences both personally and with others that have been mind-blowingly spot on. 

Your intuition has limits, and willing those limits to disappear will not work.

Wielding your intuition as the main tool for helping someone else is a huge responsibility to take on. If you wouldn’t just hop in a plane and start flying it because you feel like flying, then I would urge you to consider the implications of whipping your intuition around willy nilly. 

And if you are a person who finds yourself being coached by someone’s ‘intuition’, and you feel attacked or uncomfortable, I know it’s hard - but if you can, speak up. How that coach (or honestly, even therapist) responds to you in that moment will tell you everything you need to know about how seriously they are taking the responsibility of using their intuition. 

The infinite collapse of living life for others

As I sit here in a cafe putting pen to paper, waiting to see what comes out and waiting to meet up with a friend of mine who is obsessed with etymology, it dawns on me to look up the origin of the word ‘considerate’.

‘Be considerate.’ 

What a common piece of advice most frequently doled out to us as children. And what a phrase that hangs heavier with new weight in every year of life that passes. 

As if the vast majority of us aren’t all running around trying to please the ominous other beyond what is even possible - just to prove that we do in fact have a shot in hell of feeling like enough.

We advise each other and ourselves to be considerate, but do we really mean it? Or are we trying to say something else entirely?

—

The word ‘considerate’ comes from the the latin word ‘consideratus’ which, roughly translated, means to deliberately examine or observe. 

Being deliberate in one’s attention has a decisive and empowered ring to it, doesn’t it? This differs from the way most of us carry the concept of consideration in our everyday lives. 

It seems that somewhere along the way, being considerate morphed from being decidedly aware of others to living into an existence beholden to the unpredictable and invisible whims of everyone but ourselves. 

In fact, if you look up the current day, colloquial definition of the word, being considerate means being ‘careful not to inconvenience or harm others’. 

The span between the original etymology and the modern day definition is the difference between factoring the thoughts, feelings, and needs of others into the equation vs. creating the whole equation around the convenience and comfort of others. 

One perspective allows you to retain yourself, your needs, and your priorities as a foundational piece of the equation while the other perspective all but requires you to eliminate it.

—

What I am trying to pinpoint here - possibly with success, quite possibly incoherently - is the exact reason why so many people struggle with the finding a healthy balance between the polarities of the oft criticized land of people-pleasing and the seemingly risk-filled world of living life for oneself. 

And why wouldn’t this balance be difficult to locate? We do not make it easy on ourselves. The confusing implications of the word ‘considerate’ pale in comparison to the larger implications of the mixed messages we play out in our society on a daily basis. 

In failing to find the health balance, we, as a society, continue to bounce back and forth between the polarities.

And you may think that I am only writing of the suffering of those who visibly fall to the side of exorbitant over-consideration, but I am not. It may not seem like it when we are stuck in the ping ponging polarity game, but neither extreme is beneficial, nor is it less trapped in the paradigm than the other.

It is the incessant black/white, good/bad, considerate/selfish paradigm that is the problem. Not any given side.

It is my experience that even the jerkiest of the jerks we meet - those who seem so self serving it is almost unbearable to be around - are some of the most trapped in this polarization. In a no win game, they are simply the ones who choose to fight instead of facing the futility of trying to fall in line.

When we dig deeper, we see that the givers and takers are not so different at their core.

They are simply two ships on opposite ends of the same ocean. And until we realize that there is safety in the water in between, neither ship will ever reach its port.

Leaders wear sweatpants too

I remember the day I decided to drop my voice down to the low edge of its range. 

I was sitting in a high school English class and my teacher was focused on a classmate of mine for saying ‘like’ too many times in the process of asking a question. I don’t really remember what she was asking, but I do remember my teacher mimicked her words by adopting a high-pitched, soft-toned voice.

And it hit me. 

All of the people lauded by society and in the media as ‘strong leaders’ shared a few common themes:

They didn’t say ‘like’ or ‘um’. They dressed in polished suits. They stated their points firmly and directly.

And last but not least, while most of them were men, in the event that they were women, the lower their voice was, the more respect they seemed to command. 

In fact, it seemed as if a high or soft voice was room enough of a provocation for someone to comment on the woman’s perceived lack of intelligence or ditziness. 

As I took stock of my own not-so-high but not-at-all-low voice, combined with my persistent baby face and overuse of the word ‘like’, I deduced that something would have to change if I wanted to be taken seriously in life. 

I could not change my face. And I knew I could turn the ‘like’ switch on and off if I willed it hard enough. So, my voice was the only thing left to adjust. 

Even though my voice naturally sits in a relatively high range, and even though years of dropping my voice down lower than natural would come to create an annoyingly persistent layer of vocal fry, I spent nearly a decade of my life speaking on the edge of my range with the hopes that it would help people undeniably see me as a strong leader.

Unfortunately, it was not the foolproof plan I had hoped it to be.

There are many things we continue to get wrong about leadership.  

One of the things that continues to intrigue me is how skilled we humans seem to be at labeling leadership with all of the labels that actually have nothing to do with leadership - both in the workplace and in life in general.

For example, most workplaces still tend to carry a baseline presumption that years of experience is synonymous with increased leadership qualities - which proves time and time again to be a problematic auto-correlation. 

Most people raised in western society tend to carry an implicit bias that tall, white, cis-het men are more followable (read: better leaders) than the rest of society.

There is a reason why business people get so stressed out about feeling like they need to be perfect on social media. Time and time again we see that those who are conventionally attractive according to societal standards are seen to be more authoritative and worth listening to than others.

Even without the networking advantage given by being in the right rooms, people who have the ‘right’ schools and jobs on their resume are more likely to get placed in high paying, high profile jobs than their state school, generic workplace counterparts. 

The reality is that leadership has nothing to do with our clothes, our appearance, our resume, our gender, our race, or our age.

Leadership is a very specific skill that can both be natural and learned. It is entirely predicated on how a person shows up to each moment - their mindset, their attitude, their integrity, and consistency. It is proven in the moments as they play out, not through estimations based on superficial markers. 

Most of us can wrap our heads around this conceptually, but when it comes to actual implementation and awareness, we fall short. 

What gives? Why is the core of leadership so difficult to hold present?

What ifs and always have dones

Humans are creatures of habit. 

The fallacy of the devil you know being better than the devil you don’t runs rampant through our society. And our collective memories can be rather short in favor of eliminating perceived risk.

Most people I know have had the experience of watching their employer hire the manager who walked a very slick walk and talked a very alluring talk - only to have them be an absent or destructive leader in daily practice. Many people who have experienced the damage of this first-hand are now actually in a position to hire at their company.

And yet, if trends continue, even those people will still hire for the incorrect, superficial markers of a leader. 

Questions like, “If we aren’t looking at their polish, what do we even look for?” start to pop up.

Rationalizations like, “Well, how a person speaks and how a person looks matters. The external package matters. I mean, are we just going to pretend it doesn’t?” appear.

It can feel like a giant leap to give a position to a strong leader with 5 years of technical experience when people who have held the position have typically had 15+ years of technical experience in the field. 

It can feel like a risk to go against your societally influenced implicit bias and follow a person based on how they are actually leading vs how their own personal branding campaign might be influencing you to feel.

Especially in this age of constant media bombardment, our collective obsession with the glamour of image is continuing to work against accurately honing in on what leadership is and is not.

The cost may not seem so high because enduring toxic or weak leadership is something we seem to have collectively normalized. But ultimately, what we can and will gain from continuing to accurately assess and promote true leadership is so much greater.

Resist, resist, resist

So then how do we recalibrate to authentic leadership? The first, strongest, and best answer I have is this: start with yourself.

So many of us, in our own quest for development, will flock towards a certain type of person - usually one whose characteristics are societally championed. 

We may find that all of the leadership books we are reading were written by white men. Or we may find that we have a preference for content delivered by speakers who feel authoritative when they speak because of their body language, voice tone, and ability to take up space on a stage. We may hire a coach because their wardrobe and lifestyle feels aspirational. Or we may start to focus more on adjusting our outer world than adjusting and cultivating our own character.

Listen, clothes and hair and makeup and impressive speech delivery are all great and wonderful. But they are not the same thing as leadership. And if you are trying to grow leadership inside of you - one of the best ways you can start to course correct your own conceptualization of leadership is by examining why you are choosing the resources you are choosing.

What are the internal qualities you want to cultivate as a leader?

And then, look for resources to support you with growing those qualities. Here’s a hint: most internal qualities to not require nor are they necessarily inherently made stronger by any specific job, fancy degree, snazzy wardrobe, or any external characteristic.

Most internal qualities are grown with purposeful, present practice. So, in my opinion, the strongest resources for supporting one in their own leadership development will help that person purposefully and presently practice the leadership qualities they wish to possess - rather than giving them a to-do list of ‘shoulds’ geared to transform them into a leader like a corporate aged Cinderella.

When we can grow authentic leadership in ourselves, it becomes easier to spot it in others. When we can drop the notion that we aren’t a strong leader because we don’t have the right [insert superficial quality here]- not only do we allow ourselves to become a stronger leader, we also give more space and allowance for authentic leadership in the world around us.

Ableism in Coaching: and trauma diving

Trauma is one of those terms that has increasingly become a buzzword and hot topic in the coaching industry as well as in all corners of the professional development and self-help industries. And for good reason. Our collective understanding of trauma is both incredibly limited and also not precisely defined enough. 

There are many knowledgeable and skilled people, organizations, and initiatives who are endeavoring to define and educate people on what trauma is, what being trauma-informed means, and what the best approaches and environments are for people to safely explore their trauma. 

I am not one of those experts and this is not one of those conversations. 

What I want to speak about here is the seemingly growing compulsion in the coaching industry - especially the life coaching industry - to dive headfirst into a client’s trauma and the severe implications it can have for the client, for the coach, and for the industry as a whole. Especially, when seen through the lens of intersecting with disability.

First, some definitions and disclaimers:

Let’s briefly recap what we mean when we are speaking about disability. There are so many categories that are encompassed by the term disability, from mobility impairments, to immune system disorders, to learning disabilities and hearing and vision impairments - the list is quite vast. But did you know that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) are also both considered to be disabilities? 

Society and science both have a long way to go in our understanding of these two conditions, but I bring them up because while all disabled people intersect with this conversation I’m raising around trauma and coaching, these two conditions in particular are specifically related to trauma. I mean, it’s literally in the name. And what I think is important about this is that it clearly highlights the fact that not all trauma is built the same. 

Additionally, certain mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia are also technically considered to be disabilities. And as you might guess, mental health is extremely closely linked to how one processes and relates to trauma. Again, I raise this to point out that not only is trauma a complex concept, but how we all individually relate to trauma can and will inherently vary significantly based on our unique internal setup in this life.

To that point, I do want to personally be clear about something that I think is important context for this discussion on trauma in the coaching industry. I am not at all a person who believes that the only or even inherently safest place to examine one’s own trauma is in the arms of western medicine. And I’m definitely not saying the western medicine approach to psychology, disability, or trauma is the gold standard approach, end all be all authority, or that they even have all of the answers. My experience is that they very much do not. But in the scope of this conversation I do want to hold the western medicine approach to the intersectionality of trauma and disability as an important standard to be aware of. It is one of thoughtfulness and seriousness in approach. The western medicine approach to psychology may be many things, but impulsive and reckless tend not to be on the list.

So with that being said, let’s get back to the conversation at hand.

Trauma is not a one size fits all term. 

Dear coach: your trauma is not their trauma. 

And this becomes an incredibly important sentiment to hold when we consider that a large part of the coaching industry is predicated on coaches themselves doing their own ‘inner work’. 

Yes, if you are a coach of any kind, please, by all means do your own work. See therapists, see coaches. Dive into the parts of your inner world that are unexplored. Continue to finesse an outer world that matches your greatest desires. By all means, keep walking your talk. It will, amongst many other things, be very helpful to your growth in the coaching profession.

But when it comes to your clients, a line must be drawn.Your work is not their work. And conversely their work is not yours - no matter how similar you might think it looks. 

Just because you struggled with your body image and found answers and help in a 12 step program, does not mean that your client needs to, wants to, or will benefit from walking the same path as you.

Just because your last client found peace through forgiving and ultimately reconnecting with their estranged parent, it does not mean that your next client has to reconcile with - or even fully forgive - their estranged family member in order for them to experience more peace in their life.

Trauma is complex and nuanced. It is not always ready to be worked with and the work will look wildly different based on a vast number of factors. 

For example, you might have a client who is working through some money trauma due to prolonged poverty experienced in their childhood. You might think, “I used to have no money and I worked on my money trauma. I feel totally great now! I can help them feel the same way!”

Well, first of all, did you actually have money trauma? Or did you simply have uncomfortable feelings around money, which was easily placated through basic money mindset work? 

And if you did have money trauma, how did your trauma intersect with racial trauma? Did it? How so? Does theirs? How so?

How did your trauma intersect with capitalist and patriarchal trauma? Did it? How so? Does theirs? How so?

How did your trauma intersect with your own disability? Did it? How so? Does theirs? How so?

When coaches endeavor to treat trauma with a set process that was taught to them as a panacea for ‘healing’ people, they are subtly but strongly reinforcing many harmful narratives, one of which is an ableist narrative that there is not only a right way to be, but there is also a right way to relate to trauma, and a right way to heal that trauma. 

Not only is that not true, the perpetuation of that narrative can cause a person to become even more inundated with self-denial and shame when the ‘way’ that is supposed to work for everyone doesn’t work for them.

Working with trauma is not a badge of honor. 

I find that so much of the coaching industry conflates the glorified concept of deep coaching with presumptively locating and aggressively provoking a person’s trauma. 

And because of this, many coaches set out to try to heal, fix, erase, or solve a client’s trauma as quickly and completely as possible to prove that yes, they are themselves a deep coach worthy of high accolades and - of course - high fees. 

This is where coaches can best case, find themselves way outside of the realm of their capabilities, and worst case can create profound damage to the client.

One of the hardest points for a coach to really get, and what I consider to be one of the marks of a really great coach, is that how a client relates to their own life is actually none of your business. 

I want to make sure you hear me, because this is really important - especially to this conversation.

If a client feels that a certain way is the best way for them to relate to their own life, while you can absolutely inquire more or present them with other alternatives, it is ultimately none of your business to convince them to subscribe to your way of thinking. 

“But Lisa, their way of relating to their trauma or their disability is causing them so much pain! I want to help them.”

Well, first of all, is their way of relating causing them pain, or do you see how they’re relating alongside seeing their pain and have you drawn a correlation that actually doesn’t exist? Here’s another question for you - do they experience their way of relating to their situation as painful? Do they want to adjust it? If they don’t, why do you?

And even if they do, have you automatically assumed what the best way for them to relate to themselves is? Why are you trying to lead them down your road instead of helping them forge their own?

I’m not asking these questions facetiously or sarcastically - I’m asking them because these questions are just the tip of the contextual iceberg that actually exists alongside a client’s experience and your perception and interpretation of it. 

If as a coach, you are in any way relating to a client’s trauma as an opportunity for you to prove your coaching capabilities, you are going to miss the iceberg. You are missing the context. And when we miss the context, especially in the case of someone who is struggling with a complex or intersectional form of trauma, we are at severe risk of completely bypassing their experience, or worse, creating an even more traumatic experience for them.

I’m really not saying this lightly. Early on in my coaching career, I definitely bypassed people’s experiences - exerting my judgment on their relationship to their ‘mindset’. I have personally watched countless coaches in real time step right into the storm of a complex trauma situation and have watched great harm transpire as a result. 

Human egos are an interesting thing in that they are terrible at assessing true risk and experts at creating a false sense of safety. It is the human condition to think that we know more and know better than the cautionary tales tell us. It is the human condition to think that we see everything so accurately when we really don’t. 

And that is the whole point of what I’m trying to say here. 

I am not at all trying to convince you to see trauma my way or to tell you how to coach disabled people with trauma or to even tell you whether or not to coach people with trauma at all. 

I am, however, imploring you to consider that from what has been mindfully studied about the implications of trauma and disability, our egos trying to categorically know the ‘right’ way to do things is ultimately a huge danger and disservice to the clients and to the industry. 

What to do? Consider what the virtues of patience and acceptance mean to you.

I can not tell you how many coaches have said to me some version of, “I can remove people’s trauma” or “I can totally heal people’s trauma”. I have even heard a few coaches who compare themselves to a surgeon - boasting that the process may be very painful, but when it is done, all trauma will be removed from the body and mind *snap* just like that.

Claims like this have always given me pause, because I’m going to be honest with you, they seem incredibly reductive and intolerant.

Can a person be limited in certain ways and thrive in others? Can a person be grappling with their own trauma and the depths of their own circumstance and still be successful? Can a person have parts inside that are healed alongside parts that are still healing or may never heal completely and still experience fulfillment, peace and joy?

I believe they can. I believe we all do. 

So when someone is passing judgment on trauma as this very evil thing that a person must purify themselves of in order to reach abundance and success, it raises the question for me - is their understanding of trauma inclusive of the vast complexity of the term or is it centered in a privileged and ableist lens where the depth of reality for so many people is bypassed because clever ‘techniques’ don’t seem to ‘fix’ them well enough?

Here’s my bold personal opinion: if you are in the mindset of believing a person is whole and worthy, but you find yourself thinking things like ‘but just think of how much more they could have if they were free from their trauma’, I encourage you to take an honest look at your definition of whole and worthy. 

Part of dismantling ableism in the coaching industry is looking at the ways in which coaching methodologies present a problem to be fixed because said problem is seen as a hindrance on the true, pristine, pure, and ideal reality that is ultimately accessible only through the lens of ableist privilege. When these methodologies then come in contact with disabled people, we start to see how intolerant and limited they really are because they are built on the belief that words like limitation or trauma mean the same thing for all of us.

Which they don’t. 

I don’t have all the answers, but here are some tangible tips.

If you are a coach, please remember that you do not have to be the person who helps a person address their trauma in order to coach them effectively - even on the things that their trauma intersects with. 

If you have been taught a specific technique intended to work with trauma - whether it be NLP-based, hypnosis-based, somatic-based, or anything else - and it was presented to you as a cure all, please consider that it’s not. And if you didn’t receive incredibly specific, incredibly situational guidance and advice on how to implement the technique safely and thoughtfully into your coaching practice, please approach with extra caution and explicit consent from the client.

Which brings me to my last tip for coaches - one which will presumably come up often throughout this whole series of mine. Learning cool coaching techniques is great, but do you know what is also great? Learning about the abundance of ways to ask for and confirm consent with a client at the beginning of and throughout your work. 

A large part of ableism is the world exerting its own paradigm and solutions nonconsensually onto disabled individuals. When you become well versed in the area of consent, you are helping to make your coaching practice a safer space for disabled individuals. 

And if you are a client who is turning to a coach to help deal with a trauma or trauma-adjacent matter in your life - a few considerations for you. 

First of all, consider either hiring a coach alongside a therapist, or consider hiring a coach who is a licensed therapist. As I said before, I do not believe that western psychology does the best job with the matter of trauma and it is important to know that licensed therapists do not legally need to be trauma informed. I have personally had unhelpful and sometimes harmful interactions with therapists around my own trauma. But with a licensed therapist, you are at least guaranteeing many years of education and perspective. And I mention this option first because many people I come across do not know that this is even an option.

If therapists aren’t for you and/or you really want to explore trauma work with a coach or alternative practitioner, take your time and do your due diligence. I’m a personal advocate of interviewing multiple people and asking to speak personally to current or past clients of theirs. And if someone tries to rush you into a sale, or grows aggravated with you for asking questions or taking your time, it is probably a valuable and accurate glimpse into how they will approach working through your trauma with you. 

And finally, be wary of people who make sweeping claims to be able to ‘fix’ your life or ‘erase’ your trauma - either directly or in their marketing. I know it can feel tempting to buy into these claims, especially if you are in a lot of pain, but please understand that anyone who is willing to boldly make such claims without carefully considering their harmful implications may also be inclined to overlook the actual subtleties involved in leading you through your healing journey. 

Layoffs, grief, and the long-term ramifications of fears unchecked

When I first started executive coaching, I met a man who was in turmoil around his career. His main concern was that for the past eleven years, he couldn’t seem to grow in any position he took on. 

Despite his many decades of experience and highly relevant skill set, it seemed like even though employers were excited to hire him at first, the good feelings only lasted about two years at most. Inevitably, he would start to get negative feedback. And the harder he worked, and the more he tried, the worse it would get.

This hadn’t always been the case. Earlier on in his career, he had a couple of great long runs full of growth and opportunity. I asked him what he thought the reason was behind this recent run of difficulty. 

His answer: the 2008 recession had ruined his career. 

And as it turns out, he was absolutely right. But not in the way he originally thought. 

Unresolved grief and the meanings we give it

There were a few things I found interesting about this man’s assessment around his career woes. 

First of all, we were speaking in the year 2019. And while he was first laid off from a job in 2008 due to the recession, since then he had held multiple executive level jobs. He had interviewed and been hired many times in positions with great compensation. Technically, in terms of title, his career had grown.

Additionally, he was still working in his field of specialty. He didn’t work in a field that got obliterated in the early 2000s, leaving him to totally reinvent himself. If one was to chart out his path, when zoomed out even only a little bit, it was pretty linear and steep on the upward trajectory, with only a pin prick sized gap around 2008. 

So then why did he attribute all of his recent failures to what had occurred 10 years ago?

I asked him to walk me through what had occurred. And when he did, I heard what I would come to know is a very insidious, very damaging edition of a very common story.

In 2007, this man had been on the rise in his career, and while he loved where he worked, he was looking for what would come next. After putting feelers out there, he found his perfect next step. A great leadership role with a well established company offering amazing compensation and benefits. 

Nine months later, when the recession hit, the company laid off 25% of its employees. As they say: last one in, first to leave. He was unfortunately on the short end of the stick.

However, even though he was lucky in the sense that his newfound unemployment wasn’t crippling to him financially, and even though he was employed again only 5 months later, he took the news very hard and very personally. 

What we sometimes fail to collectively recognize is that we live in a society that pushes us to place so much of our identity in our career. And many of us do - either consciously or subconsciously. 

So when someone is laid off - especially a high achiever who has done all of the ‘right things’ to ‘get ahead’ their whole life - the emotional ramifications of an unexpected, undeserved layoff can feel worse than a divorce and even worse than a death. 

The grief of loss of identity, the mourning of seemingly dissolving possibility, and the fear that the dropping veil of promised stability can be crushing to a person. Regardless of whether or not they’re one of the ‘lucky’ ones who can still afford their mortgage. Regardless of whether or not they’re one of the ‘lucky’ ones who finds a job quickly thereafter. 

The grief, mourning, and fear - if left unresolved and unhealed - will linger. If left unchecked, that’s where extended damage can really start to occur. Not from the original layoff itself, but from the false, self-deprecating, paranoid meanings fabricated to placate the pain that won’t seem to go away. 

And that’s exactly what happened with the main character of my story. 

The 2008 recession did ruin his career - but not because the layoff logistically ruined his career trajectory. 

The 2008 recession ruined his career because while he did his best with what he had at the time, he was not equipped to mindfully face and process the grief that came along with his layoff. Instead, his deepest fears about his own worth started to move from the background of his mind to the forefront of his actions - eventually running the whole show. 

And over the course of a decade, the reality of his career mirrored his internal reality. Both inside and outside, he was walking on a tightrope. He was never quite good enough. Anything good couldn’t be trusted because it wasn’t going to last anyways. 

All of this fear and paranoia initially pushed him into an adrenaline state to work hard at every new job he got. But eventually, the fear and paranoia would distract him from actually doing his job well. His performance, as a result, would decline. And inevitably, each new place reflected back his nightmare scenario to him over and over again. 

The lasting value of feeling your feelings

I know that it might feel like a sad and scary time right now - especially if you or someone you love is currently being affected by the increasing layoffs circling the corporate world. 

It is okay to be sad and it is okay to be scared. But if you are, I implore you to pay attention to your feelings and treat them with care, rather than simply pushing them aside.

Of course, if you have bills to pay tomorrow and physical needs that immediately need to get met, take care of that first. But please consider my above story to be a cautionary tale about the effects of sprinting past the dark emotions that layoffs can bring. 

As I mentioned, the man’s story is unfortunately a common one. And I have found that it tends to be the people who are least into the ‘emotional stuff’ who are most susceptible to the lingering negative effects of fear, grief, and loss. 

Emotions are not logical, but unprocessed emotions can cloud logic in a way that is both harmful and invisible to the one ignoring them.

Sometimes, the most logical, rational, productive thing to do is to recognize the implications that big life events can have on us, and seek help to ensure they don’t create unwanted lingering symptoms that silently stunt our own long-term effectiveness and success.

This may sound cliché and trite, though I don’t mean it to be so: We can’t always control what life hands us. But we can control what we do with it. 

We can control what we learn from it. We can control how we grow from it. 

And a big part of learning and growth is controlling how we sit with ourselves, how we treat ourselves, and how we show up for ourselves when life hands us some of the most sour lemons on the tree.

Show up for yourself now by giving yourself the permission and space to feel. And I promise, your future self - and future career - will be grateful you did.

***If you or someone you know has recently been laid off and you either don’t have productive support or feel like you need additional productive support: I keep a tight group of experienced executive coaches close to me, many of whom work in corporate, have coached people through layoffs, or have been laid off at some point themselves.

If you reach out to me at lisa@lisahusseini.com - I will get you hooked up with a couple sessions with either myself or one of them, entirely free of charge and free of any whiff of a sales pitch.

Ableism in Coaching: and the habit of vilifying requests

If you would prefer to listen to this post rather than read it, there is an embedded link at the end of this post that contains a voice narration.

I have decided to officially ‘kick off’ my discussion on Ableism in Coaching with what I consider to be a mammoth topic that manifests in so many ways - both in regards to ableism and also not. But I think that it’s a good one to cover early on because most anyone with familiarity around the coaching industry has come across this at least once, and the solutions I have to suggest are clear, simple and actionable. 

So let’s dig in.

But first, a story…

I remember speaking with a friend of mine many years ago as he was going through a difficult breakup. His fiancé had decided that the relationship was no longer what she wanted. However, she was obviously struggling with her responsibility to communicate this new awareness.  

She ended up calling my friend to terminate the years-long relationship. And when my friend asked for a conversation, his ex fiancé went on the attack. She started to make claims like “I never really loved you” and “If you’re honest with yourself you never really loved me - I could tell.” She picked apart his habit of sometimes leaving dishes in the sink as proof that he was not committed to their relationship. And then, unprovoked, she started directly attacking his character. 

While she later apologized to my friend for her behavior, in the moment that this was all happening, my friend was distraught and confused. He couldn’t understand why in the moment where she was already breaking his heart, she felt the need to take an ax to his self-esteem.

Because he was in the situation, he could not see it clearly. But anyone on the outside could easily see what was happening.

His ex had made a decision that she knew would be hard for him to hear. She felt guilty. And because the guilt was too much for her to handle in the moment, she turned the blame onto him and made an already tough situation much, much worse.

How does this relate to the coaching industry?

Most coaches are business owners. And sometimes as a business owner, tough decisions are necessary. 

• You might decide to hold a live event, but not have the funds or technological capabilities to make it a hybrid online event. 

• You might run a group program, and make recordings available of your sessions to participants, but lack the time or support necessary to provide transcripts and outlines as well.

• You might provide support to individual clients in between calls, but due to your own capacity or processing abilities, may only allow written correspondence and not be set up to communicate with clients via voice note.

It can be uncomfortable to admit to a client or prospective client that no, your business is not set up to accommodate their request. And it may never be.

However, rather than owning their own boundaries and ways of doing business, some coaches will instead try to justify their decisions by attacking the character of the person in front of them - either directly or indirectly. 

And this is where real issues start to occur - both for the client but also for the coach.

Time for an example…

Let’s take the example of running a group program and providing recordings but deciding not to provide transcripts or outlines.

Imagine you are the coach and you have a prospective client who is interested in your group. They have asked you if transcripts and outlines will be provided for all of the group sessions. 

Now while they didn’t give a reason for their request, let’s say they are one of the 20% of US adults who have a learning disability and that makes audio processing extremely difficult and grueling for them. Maybe this disability is diagnosed - but also maybe it isn’t - and while they experience difficulties associated with the disability, they have a deep fear that all of this struggle is just because they are actually stupid (which they aren’t).

They make this request, and you as the coach for whatever reason are unable to accommodate it. 

But you have people pleasing tendencies and are incapable of neutrally and firmly saying no. Or you want to accommodate their request but lack the resources to do so, and feel deep shame around your lack of resources. Or perhaps you watched a successful coach say the following thing as an example of ‘strong coaching,’ so you respond with something like:

“Transcripts and outlines? I don’t do that. And do you know why I don’t? I work with adults. And adults are able to take their own notes. Adults are able to pay attention. And if you are committed enough and stay present enough, you won’t need a transcript or an outline.”

And just like that, you’ve made the space a lot less safe, a lot more ableist, and have possibly even created more damage than help to the person in front of you. All in the name of reducing your own discomfort around enforcing your own boundaries. 

What does this mean?

Does this mean that you can never say no to a client’s request? 

Of course not. As I mentioned before, being a business owner means making difficult decisions. And sometimes in order to stay in integrity with your decisions, you will have to say no. 

Does this mean that clients never make requests out of a sense of entitlement and laziness - that it’s always a disability?

Also of course not. But if you truly want to understand why someone is making a request, it requires context. And context requires curiosity, not judgment. 

What I have seen to be true when a coach is casting judgment on a person or people in regards to a request is that they are, in the best cases, mimicking a form of ‘leadership’ they have learned from someone else. And in the worst cases, they are more interested in easing their own internal discomfort than they are in being respectful to the person in front of them. 

Either way, the narrative that then emerges is oftentimes one that vilifies, excludes, ridicules, or shames the people who make certain requests as being not committed, not smart, not serious, or not ‘adult’ enough. And that narrative often creates a space that is not safe for a lot of people, but especially becomes unsafe for those with disabilities.

What then?

So, what to do if you are a coach who wants to create a less ableist landscape without forsaking your own boundaries?

Well, first of all, get comfortable with saying the following sentence:

No.

Just say no. If the choice is between you saying a clear, succinct no vs. you haphazardly shaming the person in front of you, the answer becomes clear. No is a complete sentence. And while the silence afterwards can feel scary, it is oftentimes the better option than the unfiltered, emotionally charged words that want to follow.

Or, if you’re in the mood for more words, you can try this sentence on for size:

No, I can’t do that. But I’m curious if you can tell me more about why you’re asking.

Learning to be an effective, inclusive coach is a journey in radical non-assumption and curiosity. You might think you know, but you don’t know until you ask.

And if you’re a client, or a prospective client, who has experienced or will be on the receiving end of this type of interaction one day - first of all, I’m sorry. 

However, I have a sentence for you too, in case you encounter a coach who you feel is casting unfair judgements on you because of a simple inquiry or request. And it goes like this. 

It sounds like you’re saying no, and I get that. And respectfully, I want to point out that you are now making inappropriate assumptions about my commitment level/level of seriousness/learning style/capacity/life/etc that I don’t welcome and are not up for discussion right now.

Like I said before…

This is a huge topic that manifests in a wide variety of ways, many of which I will dig into deeper later on. 

But in the meantime, I hope that those of you in the coaching industry see a little bit more clearly how the peace - or lack thereof - of your own internal landscape dictates the peace - or lack thereof - of the external landscape you set up for all people, no matter their circumstances.

On patience and baking brownies

When I was a senior in college, my roommate dragged me to a tarot card reader who was doing readings at a local bar.

“She doesn’t believe in this stuff!” my roommate exclaimed to the shawl-wrapped woman as we sat down. “But I know you’re going to change her mind!”

The woman did not, in fact, change my mind. However, in the midst of reading tarot cards, she did give me one of the most valuable pieces of advice I’ve ever received. So much so, that I still think about it and share it with my clients today.

As she was pulling up her cards in a geometrical arrangement that seemed to mean something to her, this tarot card reader told me about a relationship conundrum the cards told her I was facing.

“You see what it could be with this person,” she claimed. “and you’re not wrong. But the timing is not what you want it to be. And if you try to force it into the timeline you think it should be on, you won’t get a compromise. You’ll get nothing.”

Despite my skepticism, she was nailing a situation in my life right on the head. But then again, I was a 20-year old college student, so the presumption that I was impatient around a relationship situation wasn’t like, the most outlandish thing ever.

Anyways, I digress. Back to her advice.

“It’s like if you were baking brownies,” she continued. “You get the box of brownie mix, and you combine all of the ingredients. The instructions on the box tell you to cook it for 20 minutes at a certain temperature. 

You set the temperature, put the pan in the oven, set a timer, and 20 minutes later you remove the pan. You look at the tray, and much to your surprise and dismay, you see brownie batter instead of brownies. 

So, you put the brownies back in the oven. You wait another 10 minutes. You take them out. Still batter.”

“The only option you have at this point,” she explained, “if you still want brownies, is to put the pan back in the oven for as long as it takes for the brownies to cook. 

I know you followed the instructions. I know they only said 20 minutes. I know this is frustrating. But if you try to take them out now and eat them, you won’t be eating subpar brownies. You’ll be eating raw brownie batter. It’s not the same thing.”

I felt seen. And frustrated.

And she was right. Not just about the situation in my mind at that time - but about countless other situations like it in both my life and the lives of the people around me.

Sometimes in life we try to make proverbial brownies.

We get the best ingredients. We follow all of the instructions. We do everything right. And yet, it takes more time than it ‘should’. 

And if we want those brownies, there’s nothing to do, but to keep placing the brownies in the oven and wait.

The moral of the story: some things take time.

Not only do some things take time, sometimes things take longer than we think they should. Than we want them to. Than they did the last time. Than they did for someone else.

The concept that patience is a virtue isn’t for the faint of heart. 

Patience is a virtue because there is always room to be more patient - with ourselves, with each other, with our results, with our process.

And not only that.

Oftentimes, it’s only through exercising patience that we ultimately get where we want to be. 

How could that be? Well, patience is a release of sorts. 

When we practice patience, we are releasing our attachment to the timeline we have in our mind. We are releasing our expectations in favor of accuracy. 

And accuracy has a way of clicking things right into place.

Sometimes: where there is a will, there is a way.

And sometimes, our will power has reached its limit - or at least its productive limit. 

Sometimes we try to will our way to a certain result on a certain timeline, only to destroy so much along the way. 

For what?

I don’t ask that rhetorically - it’s an actual question to ask if you find yourself struggling with a timeline-based reality. 

If you continue to try to will your way through, what is the best case scenario but also what is the worst? 

Conversely if you opted to embody a little more patience and grace, what might be possible?

I don’t know. Only you will see. But perhaps in the process of releasing your urgency, you might actually finally get the brownies you’ve been working for all this time.

The case for playing small

Forget playing big. Why not play small?

Why not seek out the doable steps that can be walked with steadiness - speeding up as endurance naturally builds and allows? You might not get to your destination more quickly, but then again, maybe you will. The tortoise did, after all.

Why not relish in the crevices of time? The five minutes here, the three minutes there. Perhaps you can not plot your future empire in that tiny moment of time, but then again, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Why not see fear as an easily distracted toddler scurrying along beside you rather than something to be conquered and killed? Maybe those pleas to slow down that fear is making aren’t so mal intended. And if you were to slow down just a little bit you might find that you have an enjoyable companion on your hands who simply needs some guidance on how to grow.

I don’t know about playing all out. I’d like to cast a vote for exploring within.

I’m not so sure they’re all that different. As above, so below - right? 

What if the deeper we look inside of ourselves, the larger our lives become out there?

Deep roots weather big storms. If every unexplored thought, unturned emotion, or unresolved memory is an opportunity to grow more fertile soil, how majestic and strong could we all be if we took some time to look inside? 

I’m not a big fan of trying to reach your potential. It’s already yours. How far do you really need to reach?

Our world says go, do, become, aspire, push, strive, grind. These things are not bad, but they are one half of the equation. 

As a society, we tend to glorify these sentiments and neglect the other half. Imagine cutting a golf ball in half and trying to play a good game. Doesn’t sound so productive? Go figure.

I say stop, be still, be aware, accept what is, soften, allow, relax. Not in spite of forward motion - but in support of forward motion. 

Balance the equation. Round out the proverbial golf ball. 

And see how far you fly.

The best antidote I have for the Sunday (or even Monday) Scaries

Maybe you love your job. Maybe you hate it.

Perhaps you had a fantastic holiday break you don’t want to leave behind. Or perhaps you spent the break stressed out and feel like your promised time off has been short changed.

If you are feeling anxious, sad, or upset about getting back to ‘real life’ after this break, you probably know that you are not alone.

I was in my twenties the first time I came across the term ‘Sunday Scaries’ though I immediately recognized what it was describing. At the time, I was incredibly burnt out from my job - a job that I loved more in theory than actuality - and every attempt at taking time off was trampled by an overflowing to do list and ever increasing sleep deficit. The crawl back to work after every weekend and every break felt like the world was ripping a warm fluffy comforter off of me on a freezing cold day.

I have since heard this term phrased in a variety of different ways - Sunday Scaries, Back-To-Work Woes, or a plain old Case of the Mondays. All of these sayings refer to the anxiety we can feel around the transition from slow to fast, from stop to go, from rest to work, from my time to their time.

Unfortunately, when this sentiment was first shared with me, an accompanying remedy wasn’t provided. In fact, a satisfying remedy was never really provided. It seemed like the best advice out there was to make sure you love what you do - as though that is an easy task for everyone to accomplish or that loving what you do might categorically erase all uncomfortable feelings associated with returning to work.

But then what about the people who do love what they do? If they are still feeling the stress of their own internal countdown, what then? Does that mean they actually don’t love what they do? Ah, the anxiety has returned.

Here’s what I have come to understand…

A frequent symptom of scarcity is hoarding behavior. And even though it isn’t a tangible good, when humans feel that time is quickly running out - or growing scarce - we have a tendency to try to hoard it.

This is tough, because we can’t actually collect time. Not tangibly anyways. Unlike the coffee mugs I like to hoard on my desk, I can not simple put a few minutes or hours in a drawer for later.

So, what does it look like when we hoard time?

Well, the best way to put it is that like with money, when we hoard time, we stop spending it on the things we actually want or even need. We dive into obsessively worrying about the worst case scenarios. We create extra pain and stress where there doesn’t necessarily have to be such a large amount of it.

Unlike with money, time can’t be saved. It has to be spent. It’s just a matter of - what are you actually spending it on?

When we attempt to hoard time, we cling to a definitively fleeting thing and end up spending our time dealing with the fallout from that endeavor. We get stuck in our mind space and quickly watch as the moments we wanted to hold onto for longer slip through our fingers that much more quickly.

The way out of time hoarding - the way out of the Sunday Scaries - is to practice presence.

Take a moment. Breathe. Take another breath. And another.

How do you want to spend this next hour? What will bring you joy? What will bring you peace? In this hour, only right now. Set a timer. Do that.

When the timer is done, take another breath. There is another hour in front of you. How do you want to spend that one?

If an hour is too long for you, try 30 minutes. Try 5 minutes. Or don’t try at all. Just breathe.

In our reality, time moves forward - it always does. Trying to prevent it from doing so is an exercise in futility. Trying to pretend like it’s not is sure to cause pain.

Got a massive case of post-holiday anxiety? Be present with the time you have right now. It’s the best - and only - thing you can do.

An Entrepreneur’s Mantra For Detachment

I have spent the better part of my life fascinated by the ‘why’ behind those experiences in life that are both intangible yet extremely palpable. 

For example, in my musician years, I got to experience a phenomenon that occurs when creating music in physical proximity with other musicians of a certain skill level. While musicians have many overt tools for playing together such as physical gestures, the use of a conductor, and audible breath, there also comes a point where you can just feel it. 

Yes, ‘feel it’. I don’t have a better way of saying it, but nearly every musician I’ve ever spoken to understands what I’m saying. 

There is a type of connection that seems to transcend all physical cues. One might ‘feel’ exactly where the bassoonist 10 feet behind them is going to place that note. Or they might ‘feel’ that the soloist is about to attempt a different phrasing in the moment, even though there was no discussion of it previously. 

To this day, even remembering this feeling makes me so excited and it’s one of the things I most miss about being a performer. However, as magical this phenomenon feels - it’s actually not that mysterious. 

It’s simply an awareness thing. 

It is most people’s nature when they perform to focus on themselves. This might be due to nerves or a lack of trust in one’s own skills. However, once a musician passes a certain threshold of competence and inner trust, they can divert a lot of that previously used attention to sensing what is happening around them.

It is a skill - and a practiced skill. It is also a relatively intangible skill because it is based on one’s own awareness. So, unlike practicing scales where both you and everyone around you would know that you’re doing so, practicing awareness is different. It’s more invisible. And as a result, not as many people know or think to practice it. 

But when someone does practice it, boy oh boy can everyone feel it. That level of practiced awareness becomes undeniably palpable - for the musician themselves, for the surrounding musicians, and even for the audience. It is unfakeable and unshakeable, so much so that it even has the power to radiate in a way that becomes contagious to others.

So, let’s talk about entrepreneurship….

Being an entrepreneur, especially an entrepreneur in a service-based industry such as coaching, has raised a whole other realm of curious questions about intangible realities for me. 

One that comes up for me over and over again - both in my own mind and in what others share with me - is what I will call the Invisible Ick. 

I’m confident that whoever you are, you have witnessed and/or experienced the Invisible Ick from an entrepreneur - either directly or indirectly. Here are some ways it might have popped up:

• Have you ever been offered ‘free’ support, and no matter how many times the person says there aren’t any strings attached, you can’t shake the feeling that there are in fact many strings? And perhaps in the end you were even right? Yup, that’s the Invisible Ick.

• Have you ever read someone’s social media post or email newsletter and even though you have no objection to the actual content and there’s nothing overtly manipulative at play, it almost feels like you’re trying to be coerced into something against your will and you don’t know why? Invisible Ick.

• Have you ever gotten the feeling that regardless of their words or actions, the person across from you sees you with a dollar sign above your head? But you can’t figure out why exactly you feel that way even though it’s making you increasingly uncomfortable? My friend, you are experiencing the Invisible Ick.

The Invisible Ick fascinates me because ultimately, it’s very clearly an attachment thing. Whenever we feel an element of clinginess or graspiness, it’s an attachment thing - or more specifically - a lack of detachment thing. However, knowing that it’s related to attachment actually does, in my opinion, very little to help the entrepreneur eliminate the Ick. 

First of all, we humans all have attachment issues on some level big or small. Saying ‘Be less attached’ is almost like saying ‘Calm down’ to a person overcome with anger. Is it ever really that helpful? I remain unconvinced. 

Also, while the Invisible Ick tends to originate from the entrepreneur’s own attachments, its true palpability occurs in the person or people on the other end of the interaction. This is tricky because our attachments tend to be our blind spots. So, an entrepreneur might not actively feel attached. They might insist that they aren’t. Yet while the symptoms of their attachments are showing up clearly, they are showing up clearly in the eyes and experiences of other people who may not want to or even be able to articulate what they’re experiencing. 

So the Invisible Ick lingers. 

What to do, then? Well, I have an angle I’d like to explore.

Entrepreneurs, I’m talking to you.

Entrepreneurship, especially service-based entrepreneurship, can be emotionally difficult. You pour your heart into something with the intention of helping and also the hope of making money.

• Maybe you have an idea for a program that you really see a need for. You spend hours developing it and speaking about it and marketing it. And nobody signs up.

• Or maybe you have been speaking with a potential client and both their words and reactions signify that you have really helped them. In your eyes, they are a perfect fit. Yet, despite all of that, they are not interested in working together.

• Perhaps you have spent weeks, months, or even years setting a fee for your services that you feel really represents the value you bring. ‘It’s a steal!’ you think, considering how much you are offering of yourself. Anyways, you know many people who charge 3 or 4 times this amount. And yet, everyone you’ve told your fee to has exclaimed that it is way too expensive for them.

Entrepreneurship can feel so difficult because it’s not just about helping people and it’s not just about money - it’s about both. And that can feel very blurry and very confusing.

Especially when we consider that most people drawn to start coaching, healing, or helping businesses have likely been the ‘helpers’ in their own families or social circles their whole lives. This means that there is typically baggage attached to one’s concept of service and how it intersects with their own value or desire for acknowledgement. 

Add in the actual need or desire for money (which is why most people start businesses in the first place), and the whole thing really starts to feel very personal and get very… icky.

Soon, your head might be full of not so pretty thoughts like:

• Why didn’t anyone sign up for my program? Don’t they see how badly they need it? Don’t they want to be better? Don’t they know how hard I’ve worked? Don’t they care?

• How could that person say no to signing up with me? After all of the time I spent with them? After I fixed them? Don’t they know that when I offered one more call with ‘no strings attached’ that was supposed to make them want to sign up with me because I’m are SO GRACEFULLY DETACHED AND ONLY CARE ABOUT WHAT’S BEST FOR THEM DAMMIT?!

• Too expensive? I’m too expensive? Do they even understand what commitment is? They are obviously uncommitted and obviously lazy and obviously stupid because if they saw the true value of my judgment-free presence, they would find the money and then some. 

You insist that you’ve never had any of these thoughts? I’m sorry, I don’t believe you. 

These emotionally rooted thoughts, and thoughts like them, can feel ugly and shameful - so our instinct is to ignore them. Douse them in stilted positivity. Run away from them by diving head first into another method or approach. 

But when we react to them in this way, they don’t just go away. They linger, and become your blind spots. They stew under the surface and become the base ingredients for the Invisible Ick. 

Yup, the thing about being an entrepreneur is that our internal reality translates externally - whether we want it to or not. Whether we are willing to accept it or not. And attachments don’t just go away because they’re inconvenient. Ultimately, we have to face them.

I promised a mantra, so here it is:

They do not owe you anything.

I know it might sound harsh. But it’s the truth. And I’ve always found the truth to be helpful.

Your audience doesn’t owe you engagement. Your clients don’t owe you renewals. The people you speak with don’t owe you big breakthroughs. Your prospective clients do not owe you their desire to work with you. People do not owe you their agreement that your fees are worth it or your services are helpful.

Please stop trying to erase your emotional debt by attempting to collect validation from the people you do or hope to serve. It’s not their tab to pay. And it is limiting your ability to actually be helpful since your awareness is being used up on what you think you should get vs what is actually occurring in front of you.  

Practice shifting your awareness from what should be to what is. Aim to be relentlessly honest with yourself. The more you do this, the less you will run the risk of invisibly radiating ick and the more you will see all of the opportunities to both be helpful and make money that exist in this world we live in.

Helpful or harmful?

“Are grapes good or bad?”

I left this message for my functional nutritionist, Stephanie, many months ago. I earnestly hoped that she would cave in and, for once, give me a clear cut answer to my question. She did not.

“Can you tell me more about what is making you ask this?”

At first, I insisted that my question was due to the high sugar content of grapes in comparison to other fruits. However, my inquiry into the moral value of grapes actually stemmed from an impatient frustration that had been steadily growing. 

For the past many months, Stephanie and I had been systematically zero-ing in on the root cause of the extreme and seemingly uncontrollable health symptoms I had been experiencing for over two years. While we had been on this journey for awhile, it was clear that there was still a long ways to go. 

And my exasperation was catching up with me.  

There had been blood tests and supplements and saliva samples and dietary tweaks. There were lifestyle changes like consistently prioritizing moderate sleep and moderate movement that felt inconvenient and challenged my affinity for extremes. 

There were also the voices. The old parts of me that had lived out decades of disordered eating  were screaming at me to ditch the balance and recklessly throw myself into an internet-prescribed extreme diet. The ruthless perfectionist in me wanted strict criteria against which I could judge myself, my behaviors, and my body as a failure.    

It was a lot. I was exhausted. And I wanted an absolute answer. 

Stephanie, however, would not give me one. Despite my many pleas, she gave me an aggravatingly calm, balanced, and accurate final answer.

She advised (for the 5983rd time) that I try my best to get a balance of protein, fat, and carbs every time I eat - regardless of the specific foods at play. 

She explained (for the 8290th time) that stressing out about whether or not a food is good or bad is ultimately counterproductive for me - as an influx of stress was more likely to derail the healing of my hormonal system than an influx caused by any dietary substance.

And above all, she reminded me that while labelling anything as 100% good or 100% bad might feel helpful in some ways, it also ran the risk of being harmful in other ways. 

The clear cut answer I was looking for simply didn’t exist - in this, or in any situation.

Safety Addict

Ask people what they want most right now, and they will likely say that they want something they believe will bring them safety.

For example: 

They might want more money so that they feel a sense of financial safety. 

They might want a relationship so that they feel a sense of emotional safety.

They might want to know, with absolute certainty, which direction they should go next in life so that they feel a sense of mental safety - or in other words, the safety of ‘knowing’.

The issue with the quest for safety is that there will never be ‘enough’ of it. So when we throw ourselves blindly into searching for it, we can quickly become addicted to the next hit of perceived security. 

And this is really where we can get into trouble - both individually and as a society. 

Most people are consciously aware that safety - at least on the macro level - is an illusion. For example, while your financial situation may have a large impact on your immediate physical safety today, you are also probably able to clearly see that in 100 years, you brain will not care about your student loan balance.

Does this mean that we shouldn’t care about seeking safety and safeguards throughout the course of our lives and in our society now?

No, it doesn’t mean that at all. Quite the opposite.

But it is worth noting that humans are hardwired to operate from our subconscious survival instincts - not our conscious minds, especially when we feel our safety is threatened. And so it’s pretty common for nearly all of us to get tossed into the safety and security addiction cycle without even realizing it.

Before you know it, you might find yourself chasing a relationship that you know isn’t good for you because the hit of promised emotional security is more alluring to the terrified subconscious mind than is logical.

Or you become fixated on making more and more money, only to hoard it all. Because, while you are technically financially secure and ideally believe in giving back to the community, your subconscious mind doesn’t feel quite financially safe enough yet to do so.

Or, as in my aforementioned case, you might rush to label a group of foods bad due to the certainty expressed by a couple of representatives in an imperfect medical system. Yet in the meantime, you ignore and miss the very clear, very obvious clues your body is trying to give you as to what you do and do not need.

Once we start falling into the trap of subconsciously grasping for safety, the next step is typically to try to seek out or create certainty wherever we can. 

But certainty is not the same thing as safety. And in a world where so much of the touted certainty is manufactured, misleading, or incomplete, adopting certainty can oftentimes be more harmful than it is helpful.

So then what?

The entire reason I’m writing this post is because I’ve noticed a huge uptick in my own allergic reactions to artificial certainty being touted out and about in the world.

As a coach, I’ve seen certainty wielded by people and organizations across the personal development space for many years. 

“Do this thing and you will get this result.”

“Ponder this question and it will change your life.” 

“Buy this course and you will become a billionaire.”

This type of narrative has always been present, but in the past many months, I’ve seen it increase exponentially. And it feels unsettling.

It feels like people are constantly yelling above each other. No listening, just yelling - like a noisy dinner table with nonstop clamoring for the loudest voice to win.

Do you know what I’m talking about? Do you enjoy it? Perhaps you do. But I certainly don’t. Neither as a participant nor as an observer.

And yet, the coaching and personal development industries aren’t the only place this absolutism is showing up. It’s appearing to increase everywhere.

“This food is killing us while that other diet will save us all.”

“College degrees and certificates are a costly scam but the more degrees and certifications someone has the more trustworthy they are.”

“Their belief system is ruining the world and they should be stopped yet the people criticizing my beliefs are judgmental people who can’t mind their own business.”

It’s not the contradictions that are the issue. Life is a giant contradiction. Contradictions are necessary, beautiful and productive.

The issue that has been increasingly occurring is that there is a rapidly waning level of even the simplest acknowledgement that there is indeed a contradiction in the first place. We are increasingly, both within ourselves and as a greater society, seeing the extreme polarities and taking that as a sign to quickly adopt one of the certainties in the paradigm at play.

One of the definitions of ‘peace’ is “a state or period in which there is no war or a war has ended”. Peace exists in the grey area between the polar certainties. This is true in society. But most of all, it’s true within ourselves.

There will be times in your life, maybe even a few today, where you will find yourself asking - is this person, this animal, this food, this place, this perspective, this statement, this religion, this country, this behavior, this thought, this emotion….

….. is it helpful? Or is it harmful? 

Chances are, it’s a little bit of both. Because everything is a little bit of both. And the accuracy of that innate contradiction is point from which real growth and evolution - both personal and societal - is possible.

My suggestion for you is this. When you are faced with this question, wait a little more. Listen a little longer. Sit for awhile in the in-between space. It might be uncomfortable at first, but it also will be where you find the peace - and corresponding safety - that you’ve been looking for this whole time. 

Your Commitment To Berating Yourself Is Killing Your Productivity

Your mind is a very powerful tool. But sometimes, your mind is lying to you. And those lies, while trying to help you, are sucking your energy and time down the drain.

A lot of the people I speak with are objectively highly successful people, who have achieved everything short of literally moving mountains. And yet, when I meet many of them, they are gripped with a fatigue that is seemingly getting in the way of what they want.

“I don’t get why I can’t just do the thing,” they proclaim.

…typically followed by…

“I just need to get my act together and do it.”

I then watch as they unsuccessfully try to direct the remaining fumes of willpower (depleted through exhaustion) to the ‘problem’.

Inevitably, when that doesn’t work, it all comes tumbling out:

“I’m so lazy. What’s wrong with me? I can’t believe I’m such a failure. I just need to be stronger and suck it up. I’m so weak. I’m such a loser”

And there it is. The buried inner monologue carrying a stream of self-beratement. a.k.a the mind trying to find a problem to fix. SO it decides the problem is YOU.

If you resonate with the previous words, I’ve got a message for you:

That constant hum of internally beating yourself up? Your mind harshly telling you that you are a f**k up as a form of motivation?

THAT is what is hemorrhaging your energy, your focus, your motivation, and your confidence.

The mind is a powerful tool. When aimed against ourselves it is also a powerful weapon.

And if you notice that you have aimed the weapon at yourself, please please please do not continue the attack.

It’s exhausting. And harmful. Sure it will give you a ton of control, which your mind will love. But it will inevitably rob you of what you are actually seeking.

The only thing to do is pause, breathe, and start to reverse the damage the inner battle has caused.

Instead of telling yourself you are lazy and useless and always fail. Instead of telling yourself that you are the unfixable problem…

Try telling yourself you are doing your best and have experienced success before so it’s only a matter of time until you get there again. Try congratulating yourself for showing up and trying.

I can not tell you how many people I’ve seen jump into productive action after practicing 3 minutes of self-kindness.

Your mind can tell you that you are the curse in your own life. That you are the problem that needs to be fixed.

Or your mind can tell you that you are a good person with all of the internal resources necessary to create what you want next.

Whatever you think, you will create. So choose wisely.

Impossible - The Self Fulfilling Prophecy

When I lived in Amsterdam, there were many culture shocks that I and my American friends encountered. None was so jarring as ‘niet mogelijk’. 

‘Niet mogelijk’ means ‘not possible’ in dutch. And it is a very commonly spoken phrase in the Netherlands.

Nearly every day, one of us would return to our apartment complex and would share, with laughter and frustration in our voice, yet another example of something we were told ‘wasn’t possible.’ 

What confused us most was that most things were, in fact, quite possible.

We heard: Want to sign up for that course? It’s not possible. 
They meant: Special permission from the instructor is required and you would have to get it yourself because I don’t feel like it. 

We heard: Want to extend your time in Amsterdam beyond your visa? It’s not possible.
They meant: A lot of people do it, and there is a way, but it’s a risky process that may not suit everyone.

We heard: You want to buy tickets to that event? It’s not possible.
They meant: I’m pretty sure tickets are selling quickly and there may only be a few if any left.

At first, we took their response at face value, assuming that we were all unlucky people with unreasonably high expectations. Eventually we realized that ‘niet mogelijk’ really meant ‘I’m not sure if that’s possible’ or ‘that requires more work than I would personally invest’ or ‘I’m annoyed and don’t want to talk to you’. 

From that point forward, when we wanted something, we asked. We suggested solutions. We followed the trail a little longer than before.

We watched as most impossibility transformed into possibility. And our entire experience changed.

---

Most of us have strong limits in our mind regarding what we think is possible. And it’s not really serving.

You may be reading this and thinking, “Lisa, is this going to be an ‘if you can dream it - you can do it’ post where you tell me that the reason I’m not a billionaire is because I don’t believe it hard enough?” 

No! Not really. Though for what it’s worth, I have a client who wanted to build a billion dollar company from scratch, but was lukewarm in embracing that they really wanted it. We got crystal clear on their vision, and 6 months later, they are set to have a 10 million dollar year. So, I’m very much not opposed to the idea. 

But I’m talking about much smaller, yet enormously impactful, potatoes.

You may have a strong belief that it’s not possible for you to switch industries in your career because you don’t have the right education/credentials/experience. So you venture forward in a career and an industry that makes you miserable, never really checking to see what opportunities are out there.

You may firmly believe that it’s not possible for you to be happy unless you’re in a relationship. So you delay your happiness, putting any self-fulfillment on hold, until you have a permanent date nailed down.

You might think it’s not possible for you to attract a certain level of friendship into your life. So you keep spending your time with people who drain you and put you down, opting to avoid feeling lonely and giving into the idea that this is as good as it’s going to get.

When it comes to your dreams, I have no idea what will actually manifest. I can not say with absolute fortitude that if you dream it, you will do it. 

But I can guarantee this. If you don’t let yourself dream it, you won’t do it. Our actions only meet the level of possibility our thinking allows. So if there is something you are waiting to happen to you, but you barely believe that it could - it likely won’t. 

---

So what next?

My experience is that most people, especially achievers, are overly concerned with being reasonable, logical, and not delusional. 

I’m by no means god, but I speak with a lot of people about their dreams. And I can say that anyone who has ever expressed true concern to me about ‘being delusional’ in their hopes and dreams is typically the person who is furthest away from thinking outrageously. 

And also - so what?

So what if your dreams are a stretch? So what if your thinking is extravagant? There are few things in this life that we have full agency over and our thoughts are one of those things. 

It may seem small but fully owning and accepting your own hopes, desires, and dreams is a powerful act that most people struggle to take. Because once you see it as possible, you will start to see more possibility all around. So much so, that you may feel increasingly tempted to act accordingly. And then it’s game on.

There is no rush to embrace the possibility you want to see in your life. And there is no requirement to think big. Your version of embracing possibility may be accepting seemingly small gestures of support from your immediate community that you were previously too ashamed to accept. 

However, many of us are running a series of societal programs in our minds. And many of this programs have subtle walls of “not possible” built in.

If you’re feeling stuck, or looking for more, it might be time to tear some of those walls down, bring your dreams into the sunlight, and see what is actually possible in this lifetime.

Gigs getting cancelled (again) due to coronavirus? Here’s what you can *still* do.

The below post is an updated version of this post from March 2020.

Many performing artists and performing arts organizations are experiencing a concentrated wave of coronavirus-related cancellations due to the omicron variant. While fears about cash flow, short-term ramifications, and long-term impact are not only normal, but heightened due to the prolonged trauma of the past two years, there are actions both artists and arts organizations can make to be more helpful than harmful during these times.

But first, no matter who you are, take a deep breath.

Now take another one.

Your nervous system says, “thanks.”

For Freelance Artists

Don’t be afraid to ask.

If you have suddenly lost income due to a postponed or cancelled gig, and it is causing a situation where you do not have the funds you need to live your life, ask the organization if they are willing to pay some or all of the contract - either as a cancellation fee or as a prepayment for when the gig actually happens.

• Yes - they might say no and that might make you irate.

• No - that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask in the first place.

• Yes - you can still ask even if you feel like they implied or even stated that they wouldn’t be paying anything.

• No - this doesn’t only apply to fees for cancelled gigs. This also applied to lack of clarity around Covid safety protocols. Ask, ask, ask, ask, ask.

When doing this it is also very effective to be absolutely, abundantly clear about how this has impacted or will impact you. And above all…

Try to be as gracious as possible.
Even though the loss of income may really hurt, try to remember that the human(s) who made the decision to cancel/postpone your engagement are probably full of their own guilt, worry, and fear over an impossible decision. They are also probably in their own trauma response. There is a huge difference between:

“I’m really disappointed to hear this decision given the position it puts me and all of your artists in.”

vs.

“You should be absolutely ashamed of yourselves. You obviously don’t care at all about the human beings in this organization.”

The first one is more effective. The first one is more appropriate (in 99.9% of situations). The first one is more likely in integrity with the loving, considerate professional you are and want to be. I’m a firm believer in the concept that what we put out there comes back to us in some way, shape, or form. You probably do not want the energy of that second statement coming back to you.

I know that your likely trauma response from March 2020 is making it difficult, but please try to….

Stay in the now
A cancelled gig this week does not automatically mean you will have cancelled gigs for the next one, two, or five months. You’ve been here before. You know how quickly things can change. You know how miserable it can be to try to guesstimate what will happen 1000 times before breakfast. If you are trying to navigate loss of income that creates an issue this week, focus on that - not the potentially lost income 5 months out. I know it’s hard. And I also know you can do this.

Treat yourself kindly

If I could send you some soup, a comfortable blanket, and watch your kids for the afternoon so that you can have some quiet and space, I would. With the exception of a few of you who might be reading this, unfortunately I can’t. But please be nice to yourself. And please engage any mechanisms that will be helpful with that. I really wish this had been a sprint and not a marathon. Yet, here we are at mile 20. Yes you’ve been running for awhile, but you still have some time to go. So please, still take care of yourself.

For Arts Organizations

Practice abundant compassion
Deciding to cancel a performance is a huge decision that feels a new kind of impossible in 2022. You may even feel extraordinary guilt for cancelling work, and therefore income, for the artists on your roster. Don’t let your stress or guilt prevent you from communicating your decision in an effusively compassionate way. Artists may be upset and may want to speak with you. Make the time for them. Make it okay for them to ask uncomfortable questions without getting defensive. If you do not know how to do this, please consult with a therapist, coach, or consultant who does.

Do everything in your power to pay something
If you just postponed or cancelled a concert, make paying the musicians a portion of their fee now a top priority - even if you are not contractually obligated to. Yes, you may lose some money if a few of the musicians can’t commit to the rescheduled performance. But at this point, probably even more than in March 2020, lost work is likely significantly hurting your artists. If you really can’t swing it, don’t put yourself out of business. But if that’s the case, be transparent with your artists about that, and be open to suggestions about how to make payment possible.

Clarify the grey
Don’t have enough information to decide if the concert you just called off will be cancelled completely or postponed? Don’t know when or how you will reschedule your performances? Don’t know what this all means for your audiences, budget, and artist roster? It’s okay. You don’t need to know everything, and you certainly can’t control everything - especially right now. But to lead your organization through times of uncertainty, you need to learn how to lead from within the grey area. Leading from within the grey area means loosening your grip on control, learning how to communicate clearly, and accepting that while unknowns are an inevitable part of the equation right now, you are responsible for letting your constituents know what is and is not known at any given point.

By the way, this counts triple for Covid protocol should you keep your performances going. Masks, no masks, vaccinations, no vaccinations, tests, no tests. Figure out what you know and what you don’t know and lay it out clearly for your artists as soon as is possible.

Communicate, communicate, communicate 
Even in the best of times, humans tend to significantly overestimate the effectiveness of their communication and significantly underestimate how much communication is ultimately needed. In times of uncertainty and confusion, communication tends to get much worse despite best intentions. I understand, you’re tired too. You’ve probably done a lot of heavy lifting that has gone unnoticed in the past two years to just help the organization survive. But if you bring your frustration into the communication with your artists, you will be met with frustration from them. Slow down, slip into your compassion, and be as clear and loving as possible.

Another deep breath is probably warranted - so I encourage you to do that. Humans are resilient. You are resilient. You will get through this.

Turning the world upside down: what happens when we shift our perspective

For three minutes today, as I laid on my back outside, I changed my reality. What occurred was both mundane and magical.

As I laid there staring at the tree in front of me, and the clouds directly behind it, a small voice inquired in my mind, “Who is to say that where you are looking is up?”

“Who is to say that the leaves that are falling are falling down?”

After all, for all I know, if I were to zoom out to space, I might see that my location on the Earth means that I am hanging ‘upside down’ at this very moment.  And then again, from that perspective, what is even right side up?

Suddenly I watched as the clouds became whale-like creatures drifting through the ocean of a sky. Protecting me from the infinity of the sky were the branches of the tree that acted like a floor. Every once in a while, leaves would leap up towards me, as chandeliers of flowers hung down around me. 

Nothing factually changed. I did not step away from reason or fact. I was not flooded with delusion.

I was still aware that gravity was binding my back to the soil against it. But gravity is a force dictating the planet’s central direction. The force of gravity does not need to dictate my sense of direction or perspective. 

In fact, one could easily make an argument that a loose helium balloon is not floating upwards. Rather, one could say that a loose helium balloon is simply finding its way to the part of our atmosphere where it will be most at equilibrium with its surroundings. 

And they would still be correct.

Shifting perspective is a skill. Practice it.

An enormous part of our daily lives are constructed by our perspectives. And more of our perspectives than we might like to admit are created by default. 

Shifting your perspective is one of the greatest tools necessary for growth and change. And yet, it can feel very difficult to practice. 

When you purposefully shift your perspective, you might think for a moment - am I delusional? This is not only extremely normal, I would argue that this moment of pause is a guaranteed phase you will pass through when popping your perspective from one place to the next. 

Yet most people encounter this phase, and scared by the possibility that they might indeed be crazy, do not continue their inquiry beyond this point. They freeze. They stay put. They stay small. 

Now, in this week of new beginnings and resolutions, is a time to examine these patterns. Do you want to grow your business to a place it’s never been? Do you want to find a relationship more fulfilling than the ones you’ve ever had? Do you want to experience a level of happiness and contentment greater than you’ve ever felt?

Well, a perspective change (or more) will likely be necessary. It might be small. You may simply need to see that your goals are indeed possible. Or more specifically, you may need to see that you are capable of achieving those goals. 

No matter how simple the perspective change may seem, be aware that you will likely still come up against the phase of perceived delusion. And when you do, I might suggest that you take a moment, go outside, lay in the grass, and transform the sky that was above into the sky that is below. 

If you can shift your thinking there, you will be off to a good start.

Freeze! What to do when you feel frozen in inaction.

When I was in college, I had a friend who would become absolutely paralyzed by her to do list. She explained to me that this was something she had endured since she was a child. Even the shortest list of items would trigger inaction. All it took was one action item too many, and just like that she was lost in her own mind.

There was, however, one thing that would help her get back in action once she froze. If she could vocalize her to do list to another person, and they could repeat it back to her one item at a time, that would slow her down enough to write out a list. And once she had the list, she had enough clarity to get into action.

When she was younger, her parents used to do this for her. And as she got older, she would enroll friends to support her in slowing down and getting clarity.

She had a system. The system worked. Without it, she was frozen. But once she employed it, she was back in business.

Everybody hurts

If you just read that anecdote and are experiencing judgements - don’t worry. I used to judge her too. 

I used to wonder why she couldn’t just keep a running to do list. 

I used to judge her as needy for requiring another human to clear her mind.

I used to ask myself why she couldn’t just get it together and take action on her list.

I never voiced any of this out loud, but it was definitely running in the background. At that point in my life, becoming frozen in anxiety wasn’t something that was familiar to me. I was learning my own slightly different set of life lessons. I couldn’t empathize with what my friend was experiencing, and since it didn’t make any logical sense to me, I judged it.

Until one day, I found myself sitting at my computer frozen. I had a ton of work to do. I didn’t know how I was going to get it done. I knew I should just write it all down, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so. And I knew that I could just start with one item but I couldn’t move.

I was frozen. And I needed help.

Every machine has a tipping point

I started writing that it would make sense for humans to be so hard on ourselves if we were computers. But that’s not even true.

When our computer starts performing poorly due to overheating, most people will start tending to it like a newborn to cool it down. We place fans and air conditioners nearby. We put the computer on well-ventilated surfaces. We clear unnecessary files from the system and sometimes, we give the computer a break.

We recognize that the computer itself is not broken or malfunctioning. We recognize that we have pushed it to or beyond its capacity and therefore, its function is starting to slow. Even though the temperature doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of the parts, after a certain point the temperature impacts how well the parts are functioning. At a high enough temperature, and the best built computer will stop working altogether.

Our internal emotional state is the temperature regulation system when it comes to our productivity. We can have the know how. We can have the motivating factors in place. We can have the intention. 

But when we are anxious, depressed, or overwhelmed, our brain can quickly reach a tipping point and before we know it, we are frozen in inaction with seemingly no way out.

Defrosting in the warmth

If you find yourself in this place of paralysis, the most essential first step is self-compassion.

Why? Well, without self-compassion, you are more likely to get stuck in a self-blame spiral that keeps your frozen. Without self-compassion, you may feel too embarrassed to ask for help. Without self-compassion, you are more likely to have the anxiety, depression, or overwhelm flood back in a few hours or days later.

Remember, if you are frozen in inaction, it is more likely than not due to an emotional experience - not a lack of competence. So, collecting more time-hacks isn’t going to address the underlying issue.

However, to that point, if you don’t have go-to tools or systems like my friend in college, now might be the time to research some. Keep in mind that just because a system works for someone else, it may not be the right fit for you. But if you look and try a few out, you will find one or a few with which you resonate. 

Compiling a list of tools when you aren’t in overwhelm is key to getting you out of overwhelm because it can be very overwhelming to try to figure out tools when you are already frozen. This is an example of current you helping future you out. And there is no better way to foster self-compassion than doing yourself a solid.

While it is extremely common to become frozen in inaction, the experience can still be jarring. By understanding what is actually going on, eliminating self-judgement, practicing self-compassion, and employing tools that work for you, you can get yourself in action in no time and create a system where freezing is a less and less frequent occurrence. 

Open Your Eyes

“Is your insurance all paid up?”

Before I had the chance to point out that insurance does not actually prevent injury, the man next to me had floored the gas pedal in the Porsche 911 Turbo S in which we were sitting. As we hurtled down a nondescript street in Arizona, I found myself doing something out of the ordinary for me. 

I opened my eyes.

This is a story about what I saw.

Some backstory…

The man in the Porsche was Steve Hardison, aka The Ultimate Coach. I recently had the extraordinary privilege of spending an evening with him - a time that I will continue to process for weeks to come. What’s important to know for the purposes of this story is that this part - the speedster part - occurred a couple hours into our evening together. 

If you do not know who Steve is, then it’s also important to know that one of the many reasons he has gained the reputation he has as a world-class coach is that he is immensely and impressively present and perceptive. The obvious benefit of this is that it provides the ability to pick up on the unspoken truths that clients bring forward. 

However, there is an additional, equally important benefit.

High levels of perception are, in my experience, contagious. If you are receptive and you want to upgrade your own sensory system, spend a few hours with someone who sees things, hears things, and notices things that you don’t. You will leave a much more aware human. 

Before we get back to the back road with the speeding car, I should give some context to my own relationship with speed. While I am a speed lover and thrill seeker, I wasn’t always that way. As a wildly sensitive child, I would burst into tears the moment I was pushed more than an inch on the swings. The motion was too much for me to handle.

As I grew older and started fancying things like roller coasters and skydiving, I realized that I could enjoy the thrill of high speeds more if I closed my eyes. It offered me the opportunity to feel thrilling sensations in my body without the added terror of actually witnessing the situation I had put myself into. 

So, with the exception of only a couple rare times, I habitually and seemingly involuntarily clamped my eyes shut in nearly every high speed occurrence in my life. 

Up until this point.

Back in Arizona…

So there I was, in the passenger seat of a car that has just gone from 0 to 60 in around 3 seconds, whipping down an empty road, eyes clamped shut. When suddenly, some of that highly contagious presence that I had soaked in over the past few hours kicked in. Reluctantly, I urged my eyes to open.

At first, it was what I expected to experience. The world was moving so fast - almost too fast. I wanted to shut my eyes again. 

However, the longer I kept them open, the more I saw that the world around me wasn’t one big blur. It was actually discernible - even at this high speed. With each passing moment, I saw more objects outlined in detail.

I turned to look at Steve who was, thankfully, not closing his eyes. Not only that, he looked calm and in control. I turned back to the road. Suddenly I felt more calm and in control. 

The world was moving quickly, but despite that, I had slowed down. And eventually, it slowed down to meet me.

The moral of the story…

The world is a fast-paced world. Many of us live fast paced lives. And yet, when things get frantic, most people tend to repeat my habit in high speed situations. Maybe you do this yourself.

You close your eyes. You shut off a section of your senses. You aim to make the pace more bearable by creating the numbness that lack of presence creates. Yet, even though the pace may be more bearable in the moment, it feels even more uncontrollable. 

You may even consider, for a moment, that you could bring yourself into the present. And yet, presence feels way too scary and way too overwhelming. When you first explore total presence, it actually feels as though life is speeding up - not slowing down.

But here is the thing. 

It is only through presence that we can actually slow down. It is only through presence that we can actually increase our sense of control in this lifetime - or rather, our feeling of mastery.

I know it feels scary. I know you may have tried and failed before. 

But the next time you find yourself in a situation where you feel like the world is whizzing by you, and everything feels too unwieldy and too out of control - try opening your eyes. Bring yourself into the present. Wait a few seconds.

And watch as the world slows down to meet you.

You Are The Curriculum: What my car woes have in common with coaching

I’m sitting in the lobby of my auto mechanic as I write this. It’s my second time here today.  It’s only 9 in the morning.

I originally came here at 8 - right when they opened - because over the weekend, my car had started consistently making an unavoidable noise when I accelerated. It seemed important to fix, and I have places to go this week, so I cleared my schedule and made sure I was at the shop first thing.

There was only one problem. This morning, after a weekend of noise-making, my car was silent. 

No matter how powerfully I pressed on the gas pedal, no weird noises were produced. So, even though I had experienced the noise over the weekend, even though I moved meetings to make this happen, even though I was first in line - they couldn’t help me. 

It’s not that they didn’t believe me. But in the absence of any blaring physical issues with my car, and without an obvious symptom for them to experience, they didn’t have the information they needed to help me and my car.

Sure, I could leave my car for them for 2-3 days for them to do a lengthy and blind inspection that may or may not tell them anything. But as I mentioned, I have places to be this week. And so, I decided to leave with my car.

While driving home, my car started making the noises again so I drove back, and they are looking at it now. 

But that’s not the point of this story. The point is that this same situation pops up in coaching. And my experience at the mechanic today perfectly highlights why there can be so many misunderstandings, unclear expectations, questions, and even disappointments around how coaching works and what needs to occur for a client to experience results.

What’s the plan, Stan?

The number one question I get when I meet with prospective clients is, “What will our work together look like?” This is both a very easy and very difficult question to answer. 

Most clients come to me with at least one area of life or project they want to work on - changing their career, building a business, finding more satisfaction in life. And yet, at least half of the time, the key to accessing what they want exists in an area of their life or way of being that they don’t raise as a focus. 

This is kind of the point. Isn’t it?

I only work with intelligent people with a decent level of self-awareness. So, I’m assuming that if there’s an area of life they want to improve, they’ve already done a decent amount of self-investigation around what could possibly be holding them back. 

A part of my job is to help locate and shed light on the blindspots. And if you’re coming to work with me, chances are you aren’t providing me a full list of your blindspots. Otherwise they wouldn’t be your blindspots. 

So, we wait. Actively. We work with what you bring. We poke around. And sometimes - oftentimes - another previously hidden theme emerges.

This is like the noise in my car. Once it appears, we can do something about it. But until then, any diagnosis or plan is a best guess - and may distract from the actual work that there is to be done.

Return on Investment

The number one question I hear from people in general is, “How do I figure out of a coach actually going to help?” 

This is an incredibly valid question, especially these days as the past couple years have brought an online coaching boom. You don’t need to go far to hear piles of horror stories about shiny, seemingly reputable coaches with promises and testimonials coming out of their ears who, upon receipt of payment, were suddenly non-responsive, delivered boilerplate or even stolen content, and unfortunately in many cases, became dogmatic, combative, or abusive with their clients. 

Under this lens, the idea of “you and your life are the curriculum for our work together” might seem suspicious. And I hear that. If I were paying a lot of money to sign up with a coach primarily due to their online presence, without ever actually having a coaching conversation with them, and they were making grandiose yet blatant promises about my income and lifestyle potential - I would have questions too if they then said that I was going to set the curriculum.

The reality is that in the midst of all the noise and confusion, there is a middle ground. It’s this middle ground that I look for with anyone I personally am seeking to hire. It’s also what I recommend for others to seek out when they ask me how to choose a coach. 

It looks like this.

It’s possible for someone to tell you how they are going to work with you in a way that makes you feel supported without making magical promises about your outcome. It’s possible for someone to both hold an overarching vision and structure for you while giving you the space to explore other areas of your life in service to that larger vision. It’s possible for someone to tell you that they don’t have a full plan outlined for the entire scope of your work together, but to share with you what they currently see, what they’re going to be looking out for, and what tools they will be drawing on. 

It’s possible for an auto mechanic, instead of taking your money and your car to “fix” something that they really aren’t sure about, to be honest about what is and is not possible and what they can and can’t promise. 

Would it feel better in the moment to have a promise, a certainty, and the mirage of productivity? Sure! 

But that’s not why most of us hire coaches, auto mechanics, or any other service providers. Most of us hire these people to help us experience the best results in the least amount of time, and oftentimes, for the least amount of money. 

And for that to occur, clarity and honesty - no matter how momentarily annoying that clarity and honesty might feel - is key.