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Success Is Not Enough

Success Is Not Enough

  “Where do I go from here?” People hire a coach for lots of reasons, and I could tell that she’d been waiting to ask this question.  She had this presence about her that made her feel far away from me in the conversation.  I was intimidated.  She wasn’t stuck.  She wasn’t confused.  She had arrived. It reminds me of when my daughters were little, I took them camping and I left all the food on the counter at home.   A 3 and 5 year old, 6 o’clock at night and an hour and a half away from the nearest McDonalds, the nearest anything.  It was classic. When you arrive at what you’ve wanted, it often doesn’t feel like what you hoped for.  This woman was smart, entrepreneurial and unwilling to stop.  And now, she had come to a place she had never been before. Nothing else to push for. “How do you rest?” I asked. “James, I don’t rest.” And from the way she said it, I believed...

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Catching Up

Catching Up

I’m coaching a 47 year old woman, and the truth is she has become a real friend.  She said something last week that of all people I wouldn’t expect her to say, “I’m not good enough.” But that’s not where the conversation began, it started with, “James, I’m gaining weight again.” “What’s underneath the weight gain?” I asked her. “I don’t know.  But, there is something bigger here.”  Then she started laughing, hearing what she just said, “I’m not talking about me… I guess what’s bigger here is that I’ve not made myself a priority.  Everything and everybody else seems to get my time, and I don’t take care of myself. “What has to shift,” I asked, “for you to be a priority? And that is when she said it, ”I have to believe that I’m worth it.  It sounds weird, but believe that I’m good enough.” People don’t say that out loud even if they feel it.  And she kept going, “I feel tarnished and damaged.  And when...

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Valuable

Valuable

A business owner I’ve coached for three year said to me, “I had a lull in my week, and my first thought was, ‘Uh-ho!  If I’m not busy, I’m not going to make enough money!'” But then she laughed, “James, that’s ridiculous.  Busyness doesn’t make me money.” “What makes you money?” I asked. She paused. And then she said it, like she finally meant it, “My value.” When I  grew up, I lived in a little town in Sonoma County, the wine country of California.  I rode my bike all over those hills, but it was the general store that had my bike parked out front most often.  Red vines for 5 cents.  A nickel was really important to me when I was kid. “But James, you know what just hit me?” this woman said, “I have to stop thinking that if I’m busy, I’m valuable.” Now I was curious and so I asked her, “What makes you valuable?” There are questions in life that we don’t have quick answers to....

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