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Greetings!
Welcome to August! I have been feeling a burst of creativity lately, so I have decided to share some more of my reflections although it has only been about four weeks since my last newsletter. You may notice that creativity ebbs and flow in your professional life as well, which is perfectly normal. Take advantage of those peak inspired moments! On occasion, I will use examples from my client work to highlight key points. In all of those cases, I have received prior permission from my clients to use their stories. I hope you find my thoughts relevant and insightful. However, if you do not want to receive these emails, please click on the "SafeUnsubscribe" link at the bottom of the page.
 I Just Met Elon Musk... Well Almost
Several weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend a meeting where there was a slight possibility that the visionary entrepreneur Elon Musk might show up. I had worked hard to set the meeting up and was excited about what the day might have in store. As I sat there in my hotel room that morning I asked myself "How would I help a client prepare for a day like today?" So then, pretending I was my own client, I asked "What could happen to make this day successful beyond my wildest expectations?" The obvious answer was that I would have the opportunity to meet Elon Musk. And better yet, I would land him as a client. I have had the good fortune to meet and work with a number of highly competent managers and successful entrepreneurs, as both an investment banker and as an executive coach, but no one yet in the league of the founder of PayPal and Tesla Motors, among other groundbreaking enterprises. I wanted to be highly prepared, so continuing in the guise of self-coaching, I challenged myself to prepare as if my life depended on it. I took the time to get ready in all the "business as usual" ways; I spent some time researching Mr. Musk on the Internet; I reviewed the public filings and press releases of Tesla Motors. I also pored over some recent investment banking research notes. I even drafted some thoughtful questions about his company's recent financial performance. All pretty run-of-the-mill preparation for a seasoned investment banker. However, I needed to go deeper.
First, I wanted to make sure I was firmly grounded in a very positive perspective for the day. In working with my clients, I go to great lengths to understand their self-limiting beliefs or hidden perspectives about themselves, as such beliefs and perspectives hobble even highly successful executives. These can often be expressed in negative, or self-deprecating sentences such as "I will never be in the same league as _____" or "Everyone at this meeting is smarter than me" or "I have not acheived the financial success that I had hoped to achieve by now, so I must be a failure." Let me reiterate that these are mostly HIDDEN beliefs that require some deep inquiry to ucover. Once my clients have developed an awareness of any self-limiting beliefs or hidden perspectives, we work together to create a new statement that summarizes a positive perspective. One that always works for me is "I am exactly where I need to be in this moment and bring significant value to everyone I meet." So, I took a few moments to sit quietly, and imagined myself meeting Mr. Musk while repeating this sentence out loud several times.
(If you find yourself thinking skeptically of these kinds of tricks, just think about what sports coaches do during a pre-game pep talk. The best coaches are masters at getting their players into a winning perspective. I am reminded of the pre-game pep talk scene from the epic movie "Miracle" about the 1980 US Olympic hockey team, in which coach Herb Brooks gets his players into a winning perspective in advance of their game against the heavily favored Russian team in the semi-final. A superb example of perspective shifting!) Cut and paste the link below into your browser to watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwpTj_Z9v-c
Next, I spent some time thinking about the meeting. What could I say to Mr. Musk that would demand his attention? I crafted a few powerful, open-ended questions for him that would allow him to experience what an executive coaching session with me would be like; questions that he does not normally hear, particularly from a stranger. Questions to which the first response is always "Wow, that's a great question; I've never thought about it that way..." Finally, I thought about the terms I would quote him, because clearly for the day to exceed my wildest expectations, he was going to be highly interested in pursuing executive coaching with me.
As it turned out, Mr. Musk did not attend the meeting later that day. Although I was mildly disappointed, I took comfort that I had taken all the right measures to ensure that I had been ready to meet him. I had performed all the "business-as-usual" preparation, the research, the review of public information, etc. However, I had also taken the coach approach and gone far deeper by getting into the right positive perspective AND by imagining and rehearsing what would happen for the day to exceed my wildest expectations.
So, the next time you have the professional opportunity of a lifetime, I challenge you to prepare as if your life depended on it! Do all the "business as usual" tasks and then go deeper! Take the time to create and fully adopt a positive perspective that works for you! If we consider every chance meeting or opportunity as a unique challenge to exceed our wildest expectations, our chances of pushing past our self-limitations increase dramatically, the result being never before imagined possibilities.
Just 25% More Recently while on a coaching trip to San Francisco, I had the good fortune to meet with one of the old guard of the private equity community, a gentleman I'll call Bob with whom I had worked on a successful transaction back in the mid-90s. I see him on occasion, but far too infrequently, so I was looking forward to our meeting. I was certain that I would learn something new or that he would offer a unique perspective on whatever we discussed. Sure enough, he did not disappoint. In the midst of a wide-ranging conversation of over 1.5 hours, we discussed an article that had recently been published in The Atlantic Monthly regarding the behaviors and attitudes among the super-rich about their wealth. Based on a study by Boston College's Center on Wealth and Philanthropy of 165 households with an average net worth of $78 million, the survey noted that substantially more than half of the respondents acknowledged that they did not consider themselves financially secure. Furthermore, that to feel financially secure they would need an average of 25% more wealth. While this fact in and of itself was interesting, Bob tilted his head, thought for a moment and said, "Isn't that interesting? For all these people, it would not take a huge increase in their net worth to create a feeling of financial security. It would only take an additional 25%, just a little bit more." We batted this notion back and forth for a while, also noting that the amount of wealth seemed to have no bearing on the relative feelings of financial security. It did not matter if a family had a $50 million or a $1B net worth. They still felt financially insecure. While driving back to the airport later that day, I kept coming back to this notion of "just 25% more" and thought about it in the broader context of how many of us choose to live our lives. Rather than being content with our present situation, whether that is our financial situation or even more broadly our career, our home, our satisfaction, for many of us, we always want a bit more. For many of us, we choose to put off contentment for now to some uncertain point in the future when we have "just a little bit more." And just like the families in the survey, who by all objective measures of wealth have enough to feel financially secure, contentment is available to us right now, right in this moment. The feeling of contentment is a choice*. For surely, when we get to that place where we have that additional 25% more - "just a little bit" - we will still want more, unless we make the choice to be content. (I am not making value judgments about "wanting more." There is nothing wrong with wanting more. The challenge is to hold both viewpoints simultaneously, that of wanting more while also being content with one's present state.) One further related point: When we are stuck in the perspective of "lack" with regard to our personal self-worth, it undermines our confidence. Whenever we feel that we are currently "not good enough" in our professional and personal lives, we shy away from taking bold risks and we delay starting challenging endeavors that would further our growth and development. Where is a feeling of lack sabotaging your efforts at personal and professional breakthrough? How is wanting "just a little bit more" preventing you from feeling content in the present moment? * One way to help maintain this feeling of contentment is to adopt a daily practice of gratitude. Please contact me if you have an interest in learning more about such a practice. With respect,
Peter Feer, CPCC, ACC
Executive Coach
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