I’m glad she never asked me…

I’m 35, living in New Jersey, working as Director of International Marketing for a publishing company. I love my job, travel the world, and have worked hard to get where I am.

Then I come home from a trip to Australia and find out the company is being sold. The job I’ve worked so hard to create will likely disappear in the merger.

I’m pretty upset, and I have no idea what I’m going to do. My friend Rob, who’s the company’s CIO, comes into my office, sees the state I’m in, and asks:

“Do you have someone who can help guide you through this transition?”

I say, “Nope.”

So Rob picks up the phone on my desk, calls a woman named Debbie, hands me the receiver, and basically gives me the exact words to say on her voicemail.

Apparently, he’d decided I needed an executive coach before I had. 🙂

That phone call started a relationship that lasted for ten years. She became someone I could bring everything to: my career, work relationships, personal issues, and decisions I couldn’t always see clearly when I was right in the middle of them. 

She could see things I couldn’t. But she never told me what to do. 

In fact, one time Debbie saw something pretty significant in my life before I did… and deliberately chose not to ask me about it.

When we first started working together, I told her my marriage was perfect, and I genuinely believed it. As far as I was concerned, that was one part of my life I didn’t need help with. I was more concerned about my career’s future cuz that’s where I thought I needed all the help.

She didn’t sit me down and tell me what she thought was happening in my marriage. Instead, she asked questions, listened, challenged me, and sent me things to read. 

Every once in a while, she gave me what I called one of her “ever so light pushes.” Over time, I started seeing things I hadn’t been able, or maybe hadn’t been ready, to see.

My marriage was falling apart, and Debbie could see that it was probably over before I was ready to acknowledge it. 

Years later, she asked me if I wished she’d said something sooner, and I told her, “No, I was glad you didn’t.”

Because I know myself, if she’d told me before I was ready to see it, I probably would have shut down and refused to look at it, which may have dragged everything out much longer. I needed to recognize it for myself.

Looking back through some of my old writing from that time, I found another line that described what I’d learned from her: how to relax and be “pulled, not pushed.”

That really was what she did. She could see something I couldn’t yet see, while still giving me room to find my way to it.

What I learned from her is that knowing something intellectually and being ready to accept it, act on it, and change your life because of it are very different things. 

Her way of coaching has stayed with me all these years, especially now that coaching has become such an important part of my own work. 

When someone brings me a decision or a business problem, I’m not interested in becoming the person who simply hands her “the answer.” I may see something she hasn’t noticed yet, ask a question that challenges an assumption, or notice something that deserves another look, but I want the answer to remain hers.

Sometimes you need another set of eyes…

And someone beside you who can see what you can’t see when you’re right in the middle of it, and give you room to recognize it for yourself.

I wonder what someone else might be seeing that you’re not quite ready to see yet?

Appreciate you!
🙂

Hands at your back.
Always,
Xox
Shannon

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Weekly Photos:

1. When I go on my Sacramento River trail, a section of the trail dumps you into a neighborhood you have to walk through to get back on the trail. You never know what you will run into. Last week it was a whole family of deer. This week it was just one, simply walking down the sidewalk like she owned the place.
2. I just love these Sacramento River reflections, when the water is so still. And that train trestle is pretty old. I do love hearing the horn when it comes by early in the morning.
3. This month, we’re demolishing and rebuilding the deck. It’s a 900-square-foot deck; yeah, I know, the size of an apartment/house. It’s the original deck, and it’s falling apart. You can’t see the worst parts from this picture. Since we live in a fire zone, this one’s coming down, and we’re replacing it with a nonwood/nonburning deck. Super grateful and excited that after it’s built, we’ll be holding many more parties and family gatherings out here.
4. This is the “After the deck was removed pic.” Right? Looks soooo different with just the dirt there. We’re really pleased with how the company we hired is doing such a stellar job. Can’t wait to share the final pics in a month.
5. Ok, so tell me what you see… I see Pac-Man, or maybe it’s a whale’s head… Hmmmm. Do you ever play that game? What does that rock or cloud look like? 🙂
6. The sunrises around here are pretty awesome. I love it when I feel like I’m walking right into the sunrise. The woods are a pretty special place early in the morning.
7. That mountain where the sun is coming up behind is Mt. Lassen. It’s part of the National Park System because it’s a “Volcanic National Park.” One of its famous trails is called “Bumpass Hell” and leads to the park’s largest hydrothermal area. No, I haven’t been on that trail, and it’s on my list. It’s about 1.5 hours from where we live.

P.S.S. Love Books as I Do? – I’m always reviewing the best nonfiction books – Where Buddha Meets Business.

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