The Hero: A Self Coaching Story

Martha woke up with the absolute certainty that she could no longer do it. There was too much pressure. Too much stress. Every day, every meeting, every decision… all eyes were always on her, expecting her to save the day, expecting her to be the leader, the hero, the idea machine. And whenever she caught those eyes staring at her she had to shake the absurd feeling that they were staring at someone else.

 

“I wonder what they would think of me,” she pondered, “if they knew how totally clueless I feel.”

Because she did feel clueless. Out of her element. Like someone expected to swim with no water and no feet and no lessons. She felt like the world was expecting way too much of her, and she felt like a failure because she couldn’t provide it all – or be it all.

 

She had tried all sorts of ideas. Training programs – some of them very good. Books – all of them with the greatest of ideas. Multisource assessments. University courses. The answers were always the same. Take risks. Calm down. Keep your goals in mind. Be honest. Be fair. Be focused. So she tried to do all those things and be all those things. she tried it all and tried it all the time.

 

And it really was all the time. She was always working. Working or trying to work – or thinking about work – or worrying about work. Work consumed her life. Gone were her hobbies, the things she had once enjoyed doing. She couldn’t remember the last time she had had lunch with a friend or thrown a party. She didn’t spend weekends out of town and didn’t take vacations. She didn’t purchase casual clothes – everyday clothes were just work clothes that had lost their shine. She didn’t own a dog because dogs took time and she traveled too much. She didn’t have a boyfriend and hadn’t had kids and she was beginning to wonder whether a normal life would ever happen to her.

 

And yet… all that effort didn’t seem to pay. The company was still in trouble, in spite of her efforts. Sales were way down. Costs were high. Layoffs might be inevitable in the near future.

 

Failure. Failure is defined differently by different types of leaders. If you are the type of leader whose only focus is the bottom line, then failure means a worse than expected (or needed) bottom line. But she was a different type of leader. Her definition of leadership success included the success of her people. Even if the company made it, even if a promising new product succeeded, even if she was lauded as the greatest CEO ever to have walked the earth – she could not feel successful if she didn’t take all her people with her. All of them. Letting some go was not acceptable.

 

Finally she had hired a coach – a top gun. The coach came to see her every week, and every week the coach asked her the same question. What is most important? What do you need to do now? The coach encouraged her to let go of guilt and to think like a businesswoman. Think of the business, he said. Think of the goal. Think of the bottom line. What is most important?

 

For a while, coaching was helpful. If nothing else, it gave her an hour a week to focus on her needs rather than on everyone else’s. The coach functioned as a surrogate boss, the boss she did not have. The coach asked her the tough questions no one else would ask. She liked him. After a while, however, she started postponing the coaching sessions. Maybe tomorrow. Can we have it next week? So sorry, but I have an important meeting… and then she finally decided to let go. She had no time for coaching. She had no time for questions and doubts and insights. She had real work to do.

 

Her head was throbbing again. Lately her headaches had intensified and become full blown migraines. She tried Eastern and Western medicine, combined acupuncture and Tylenol and still the headaches persisted. And the nausea. And the feeling that she could no longer go on.

 

Martha got out of bed slowly and stared at her image in the mirror. She felt tired and old. She had aged the last 4 years. Her hair was grayer than before. There were two straight lines between her brows, lines that looked even deeper in the morning. Her skin felt dull and dry to the touch. She was still an attractive woman but her mirror told her otherwise.

 

She turned on TV for some company and heard the anchor say something about heroes. Someone had saved a kid from a burning house. Someone else had given everything he had to a needy family. “Some hero I am,” Martha thought.

 

As always, her laptop was on. She hardly ever turned it off at night – she hated not being able to reach her emails quickly, and sometimes worked until she fell asleep. She touched the mouse automatically. Martha had developed the habit of checking her emails first thing in the morning, before even drinking coffee or having breakfast. Of course that meant that often she had neither coffee nor breakfast… and left home way later than expected. Oh well – “that comes with the territory,” she thought.

 

Strangely, this time she did not turn on her email. Instead, she clicked on Microsoft Word. A blank document stared back at her, deliciously empty.

 

“Martha’s Journal,” she wrote. A journal? Who the heck has time for a journal?

 

She pressed on, undaunted. Today she would make the time. She wrote the date. Then she stared at the screen some more. And wrote “today is the first day of my life as a hero.”

 

“As if I needed more pressure,” she thought, but just for a moment. Somehow the sentence didn’t give her pressure. It gave her a strange peace. “Today is my first day as a coach,” she wrote on. “As my coach.”

 

She paused. My coach? What on earth… “if I couldn’t make it with a hot shot coach who only coaches CEOs what makes me think I can do it on my own?” She ignored her own criticism and continued. “Today I will start pulling from within. I will start asking myself questions and taking the time to hear my own answers. Today I’ll stop expecting anyone else to know what I know already.”

 

“Wow.” Martha felt a strange vibration from within and forgot about her headache. She had been feeling lonely and empty and miserable… and now, out of nowhere, came some exciting energy. “Today I will be my own leader – the best leader ever, because I know my needs and my weaknesses and my motivations better than anyone else…and become I care about those needs and weaknesses and motivations. And as my own leader, I will help me solve the problems that can be solved. I will, however, understand that not all problems will be solved. I will do what I can to help my people but I will accept that I can’t help everyone. Today I will act like a hero and accept that I am human.”

 

It couldn’t be that simple. Her problems were horribly complex. It wasn’t only her business – it was the economy, the world, the stock market. She couldn’t possibly think that she could come out of all that unscathed simply by becoming her own coach.

 

Her answer came fast and furious – and crystal clear. “You won’t come out unscathed. Neither will the company. You will find a solution, though. And it will be the best solution you could find. Not a perfect solution – but a good one.”

 

Hunger finally hit her. With a newly found sense of balance she saved her work and took the time to get ready. She took a nice warm shower and picked her favorite outfit. She made coffee. She cooked some eggs. She stared at the snow falling and felt warm inside.

 

“Today is my first day as a hero,” Martha repeated out loud, “and I’m finally my own boss.” Then she smiled broadly, her early headache forgotten, and left to work.