Keep Going
One year ago today, I turned D-Degree Coaching and Training into my full-time job. It was an absolute leap of faith in myself.
If there were a turning point in the journey leading up to this point, it was when I did a free leadership training for a community group. I had asked my mentor to observe, hoping he’d say how ready I was to venture out on my own.
It was probably one of the worst training sessions I’ve ever delivered. At one point, a participant challenged one of the principles of leadership at the heart of the training. Her challenge represented a perfect opportunity for me to do some coaching from the front of the room.
Instead, I misperceived the moment as her challenging me! I ended up defending instead of coaching. She cut the dialogue short and wrote me a private chat about how much I had offended her.
Later, my mentor was very direct. He said, “If you’re going to call yourself a coach, you better know how to coach!” It was a bracing message that called for me to make a decision: give up or keep going?
Throughout my adult life, my habit was to give up. I’d misperceive career and personal challenges in the way that I perceived that person in the training. The challenges mirrored my own limitations, which were unbearable to see. Worse, they revealed my limitations to the world.
Some people would rather die – or go to prison – than allow people to see them fail. For them, failure means they are a failure. Limitation means they are less than others.
What viscous lies.
And so, I did the work. I enrolled in a rigorous coach training program – dedicating my nights to classroom study, coaching practice, and homework. I did this while also working my full-time job - preparing for the legislative session - and teaching as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas. I’ve never worked harder in my life than I did that year.
When I left my job, I was well prepared. Not merely because I had invested hundreds of hours learning to coach, but because I had made a decision to let success be success and failure be failure – nothing more. When I succeed, it’s not luck. When I fail, I fail. I just look at how I contributed to the failure, which reveals my next step. And I keep going.
Leadership is about getting unstuck. When we are unstuck, we can see things as they are. We can move forward. No judgement. No lies. Just action.
In my practice, I see leaders in action. I have clients who have gone from prison to leading wildland firefighting crews in less than a year. Some clients are forming their own organizations. Others are ascending to more advanced jobs. Some of my clients are creating leadership pipelines for new leaders. They are all out there on life’s stage allowing everyone to see their successes and failures.
And they keep going…