Why I do this work

When my father passed away 20 years ago, we decided not to host a funeral but a life-celebration. It was the right decision, but not in the way I’d expected. As I stood there, about to speak myself, I heard person after person describe the same kind of story: “He saw something in me I couldn’t see in myself, and he helped me become it.” Not one of them mentioned his business. They talked about his coaching, and his teaching.

I was CEO of Biomatters at the time, a bioinformatics company I’d co-founded. We were doing well. In fact, our product was about to hit the #1 science download on Apple.com. But in that moment, I knew that while running a tech company was an incredible path for many people, including many of those I now coach, it was no longer my path. My father had been a coach and a teacher his whole life, and deep down I’d always known that was my work to do too. I’d avoided it, for what is always the wrong reason to avoid something non-life-threatening: fear. In my case, fear of living in my father’s shadow.

That afternoon I saw two futures clearly. One was comfortable, but destined to lead to a life of regret. The other was harder (initially) … but it was also my true path. Within the year I’d replaced myself with a new CEO, and I’d become a student again – learning how to coach.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” Steve Jobs

Looking back, the connecting thread is unmistakable. My acting background, the company I started that went on to exit, the years in front of investors then becoming one myself, twenty years meditating, even the English degree: none of it was a detour. Each was teaching me a part of the same thing: how to help a person remove their own fears, uncertainties and doubts that stop them living their true life path. This is my life’s work, not my job. Everything before it was preparation, even when I had no idea where it was leading me at the time.

It’s why I’m as at home going over a line item in a spreadsheet with you one minute, then helping you dismantle a belief that’s keeping you below a ceiling the next. To me they were never separate problems.

You might be standing where I stood

You’ve probably already achieved something great. But there’s that whisper saying you’re here to do something beyond what you’ve done before. I help people answer that whisper (before it becomes a shout!)

In coaching and training over 1000 leaders to go beyond their ceiling, I’ve consistently found that what caps a capable person is almost never a lack of information. It’s a belief you can’t yet see, a strength you’ve stopped using, a part of you waiting for permission. My work is largely “subtraction”: I assume your genius and help you remove what stands in the way of it, so you become what you already are. I’m a catalyst for your growth, but the agent of it is you.

A catalyst is never used up in the first chemical reaction, but stays present and enables the next one, and the next one after that. That’s why many of my clients, even though they are at athlete level already, typically continue coaching with me year after year, breakthrough after breakthrough. Far from building dependence, this type of coaching builds the highest standard of autonomy.

My father never saw the work his life set me up to do. But his legacy lives on through everyone whose life I have been able to touch through taking the (initially) hard decision to live my truth that day. I often share this story with my own clients, who in turn express their gratitude that I made the choice I did that day, because without that decision I wouldn’t have been able to help them today. I can’t promise you that the decision to live your truth will be easy, but I can promise that if you take this decision with me, your life will take on a level of impact, meaning and joy that would otherwise not have been available to you.