My coaching philosophy
The role of a coach is to help individuals transform and have breakthroughs, to help them identify what goals they really want for themselves and provide them with tools to get there. Coaching is future focused. It is not therapy. Therapy is about healing, conflict, pain, the past.
What's unique about coaching is that it is a relationship of design. You’ll help me design how I can best show up as your coach, ally, and champion. There may be some ideas of how you want me to be with you around certain topics. There might be some places where you’re not sure yet how you want us to be. We’ll go on that journey together.
My goal in coaching is to enable you to reimagine what is possible for yourself and the people you impact by challenging your assumptions about growth, about success and about who you can be at your best. The three main challenges for my coaching clients are:
They are overstretched, with little time to see the forest through the trees.
They want big results (and may be impatient).
They want to break free of their self-limiting beliefs.
Logistically speaking, the arc of my engagements might look like this:
Introductory Questionnaire: to identify some key areas of focus and define our kickoff session(s).
Building the Foundation: understanding who you are at your best AND what needs to change.
Your Future Self: defining who you want to be in the world, following a process that you select to get you there, and building ritual around it.
Operationalizing Your Change: taking the one big thing you want to change and uncovering the hidden reasons that are preventing that. Then designing a change strategy to challenge the assumptions behind those reasons
Methods for Continuous Improvement: tools and techniques to keep you moving forward after big breakthroughs.
If you’re curious about some of the specific tools we use, two anchoring ones are:
RBS – Reflective Best Self. You will reach out to 10-15 people in your life to hear their perspective of when you were the best version of yourself. We’ll use their insights to help cultivate our own vision of who we are at our best.
Immunity to Change. Change often fails because we focus solely on behavior. Together we’ll take a kind of mental X-ray of your own mindset to see the ways in which your mental systems may actually be making errors or distortions that keep you from letting new ideas gain traction and allow you to change your behavior.
Jeff was my guardian through the most thrilling, challenging, and rewarding period of my life. He kept me in the ring when I wanted to throw the gloves off. He challenged me when he knew I most needed it and least wanted it. He enabled me to do the impossible, each day. Our weekly meetings were the reason I could survive and thrive for years in an extreme growth and extreme stress company as its CEO
— Richard Resnick, CEO Cureatr
— Bea Stotzer, CEO of NewCapital
[Jeff] is an experienced and accomplished executive coach with a proven track record for guiding national/international leaders…towards reaching their full potential. He has a deep understanding of leadership dynamics and is adept at helping individuals identify and develop the key behaviors that lead to exceptional leadership.
— Elizabeth Bintliff, CEO and Head of School, Global Village Project
From our first meeting on the beach in Dubai to our calls between New York and Accra, Jeff has been invaluable in helping me navigate the challenges of executive management. Jeff walks me through behavior patterns which cause me to get in my own way, is guiding me to regain perspective in my work and learn how to celebrate small victories, so that even on the days when it seems absolutely nothing went as it should have, I can still look in the mirror at the end of the day and confidently say to myself “you did your best!” Thanks, Jeff!