Ordinary People Taking Action

This is a blog series following my executive coaching client, Christine, as we navigate her personal and career struggles. If you haven’t read Part 1, click here to start from the beginning. For Part 2, click here and for Part 3, click here.

As an executive coach, I build relationships with people – in many cases very deep relationships. Then, when the contract ends, we often part ways. It’s one of the hardest parts of my job, so I am always thrilled to get an update from former clients and honored to receive multiple updates. In the case of my relationship with Christine, a year would pass with no word from her and no resolution as to what happened with her family that caused the sobbing that morning.
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When I coach people, the basis of my coaching focuses on what the individual needs in order to show up at their best. We discuss the concept of “triggers”, which are emotional responses to an event. Triggers can be positive or negative and are often referred to as either productive or counterproductive. We explore anticipated and unanticipated triggers, conscious and unconscious triggers, encouraging and discouraging triggers, and intentional and unintentional triggers.

This is a blog series following my executive coaching client, Christine, as we navigate her personal and career struggles. If you haven’t read Part 1, click here to start from the beginning. If you missed Part 2, click here.

After Christine received her undergraduate degree, she continued immediately to grad school, followed by her PhD. She is incredibly smart and very focused on her career. She has the ability to take in data, process it, and decide on a course of action. This ability, mixed with her talent for knowing exactly what is needed now to ensure her future vision becomes a reality, is what makes her truly exceptional.
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Christine would share with me her love for books and education. She reads multiple books at the same time, a habit Bill Gates is known to have as well. When Christine isn’t absorbing information through reading, she’s listening to podcasts or NPR in her car. Christine is an engineer with a level of business savvy I have never seen before. To say she is a “high performer” is truly an understatement. And despite her already extensive knowledge and experience, she is consistently focused on how she can learn more and expand her viewpoints.

This is a blog series following my executive coaching client, Christine, as we navigate her personal and career struggles. If you haven’t read Part 1, click here to start from the beginning.

Looking at Christine today with tears in her eyes, I’m reminded of that first time I saw her cry. The first time I saw her cry, I didn’t ask why. Our relationship was so new and somewhat fragile, and I knew that if she’d wanted me to know why she was crying, she would tell me. Since that day, our relationship had evolved to something deeper, so with compassion I asked, “Christine, what are you feeling?” Her response, “Sadness, very deep sadness.”

I have a rule with my clients. When the question “What are you feeling?” is asked, the answers have to be one or two words, with no explanations. I will never ask for the explanation and they don’t need to provide it. It’s a strategy that I learned working with a large corporation – that the action of naming a feeling is often all that is needed. Yet, today, without thought, I asked, “Why so much sadness?” The room was filled with a long silence. All you could hear was Christine’s breathing, and every so often, a sniffle as tears spilled from her eyes.

As I entered Christine’s office, it was immediately clear that something had shifted. The appointment was part of our standing weekly coaching session, but today’s meeting started off very different from the others. Sitting at her desk, with tears in her eyes, she looked up at me and said, “I can’t do this anymore.”

I should back up six months, to the beginning of our engagement. When the VP of HR reached out, I was told that Christine was a “high-performer” and a real “go-getter”. She was the fastest promoted VP in the company and was on track to land a coveted role in the c-suite. Yet, she needed an executive coach to “humanize her” and to help her “become more emotional”. These are concerns that, as a coach, I hear all the time.
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When we’d first met, Christine didn’t come across as confident and was slow to open up to me. The second part isn’t always a surprise. Clients can be ambivalent about seeing an executive coach. It may or may not have been their idea, and even if they are excited about the engagement – they are standoffish until we establish a rapport. Christine’s lack of confidence, however, was unusual for an executive-level professional. It’s more typical for me to see an “I’ve got this” attitude, with perhaps a bit of arrogance and aloofness sprinkled in. In many ways, it’s this confidence that got them where they are.