Feroce Coaching

I saw Richard St. John present a talk on his new book: 8 to be Great: The 8 traits successful people have in common. He interviewed hundreds of successful people to find out what they all had in common (spoiler alert: I’m going to tell you what they are). He distilled the interviews down into various qualities these people (who include Warren Buffet and Bill Gates) and figured out what they all had in common. He discovered that they all had 1) passion, 2) They had fun working and spent a long time at it; 3) They had the ability to focus on just one thing; 4) They had the ability to push themselves harder; 5) They had great ideas; 6) They got good at what they did through constant improvement; 7) They all believed in the idea of service; and They persisted, even in the face of failure.

I believe Richard has done his homework and has a lot to tell us about how to be successful. I have to quibble with his notion of success though. He takes it for granted that these people are successful, yet he never defines what he means by success which I felt was a bit odd. His subjects are all well off and in some cases, ridiculously so, and they are all good at what they do but it’s a bit of stretch to attribute success to them without saying what he means by success. Richard believes that it’s okay to get out of balance, to work long hours, to sacrifice time with family and friends, even skipping the gym all in the name of being successful. That’s not my definition of success. It sounds more like being a workaholic in my books but then one of my definitions of success is to lead a balanced life.

So what is success? I believe that we all succeed on our own terms and it’s key for each of us to be able to articulate our conditions of success. How else will we know when we have succeeded? After all, using Bill Gates as a measuring stick for success is bound to make us all feel depressed. One way to measure success is to set goals, both short and long term so we know what we are shooting for and we know when we’ve arrived. We can certainly take a page from Richard’s book to help us on our way but why not measure success on our own terms?

By the way, I think there are a couple elements key to success that Richard ignored, maybe because they are not identified as traits. Luck and timing are just as important to you as they are to the multitudes interviewed by Richard St. John. After all, how successful would Bill Gates be if he founded Microsoft in today’s business environment? Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Having good luck is really a matter of doing the groundwork and keeping your eyes open. Timing is a little more ephemeral but it requires perspective and a bit of strategy to make it work. Luck and timing can give you a leg up the ladder. May luck be with you and your timing be right!

Bradley Foster

Feroce Coach

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In my coaching (and in my practice), we are driven by the bottom line results – whatever the goal may be – whether it is achieving balance between work and play, increasing revenue, becoming an equity partner, etc.  When it comes to bringing in new work, the results are easy to measure.   Either you got a piece of new work or you didn’t.

Good Lawyer Marketing Requires You To Set A Clear, Tangible Goal.

With all of my clients, we set many different goals in several different areas.  But the goals are never ambiguous, never easy to run away from.  There is always accountability.  As you know, without it, we keep with our big picture goals of “building my book,” “increasing revenue,” “achieving balance,” without any real or permanent progress.  That is because – just like our New Year’s resolutions (mine anyway), we have bitten off more than we can chew – without little steps, and without a little help.

To avoid this common problem, I often like to set the goal of getting a new piece of work in a week’s time.  (Of course, the bigger accomplishment from a bottom line view is the goal of getting a new client every 4 to 6 weeks, which I work with many of my clients on during the coaching process, as it is obviously more involved.)  This short term goal is helpful because it takes you actively through the marketing process in a shortened time frame, is pretty exhilarating when you achieve it (and you will), and it increases your revenue.

In my experience, though it sounds difficult, this is not as difficult to accomplish as one might think.  In fact, most lawyers (at all kinds of different levels) can succeed at it.  Then, why you ask, don’t people do it, and keep doing it?  I think it boils down to two reasons – first, as lawyers, we are overwhelmed with our day-to-day work and know that we have to “increase our book” but we have to do that “next week” or “next month.”  It seems daunting, overwhelming, and easy to put off.  Of course, as a coach, we make this a machine that is built in to your practice – requiring very little effort on your part – yes, effort, but not nearly as much as you are imagining right now.

Second, and pretty puzzling, we as lawyers are generally pretty nervous at failing, and don’t want to do one simple thing – just ask for the work.  Now, it is not a direct ask – generally – and requires timing and tact (okay so we all know someone that won’t be able to pull it off), but it is pretty simple when you change your mind set a bit. 

During our assessment and your coaching, we would determine what the best approach for you would be.  But for a vast majority of lawyers, I would ask you to think of a current client that is a mess (not personally – just in a business sense), and preferably one that you have recently achieved a good result for.  You may be handling a piece of litigation for them or a trademark, etc. – and you know they have a ton of other problems unrelated to what you’re doing.  Now, instead of that client’s litigator or IP lawyer, think of yourself as their business partner.  Your goal is to look out for their business, make it as profitable as possible, and avoid future exposure and expense.  So, of course, you are going to let the client know about what you have discovered, the negative impact that could have on their business (money – bottom line is what they care about), how the issue needs to be taken care of, and how you would suggest doing it.  Now, you might suggest that you can do it or a partner of yours – but you should always suggest an alternative method too (whether it be that you could find another lawyer for them or them handling it internally).  This impresses upon the client how you are looking out for them – not you.  And, they rarely, rarely take the alternative.  You will generally get the work.

There are a dozen other get work in one week methods that I employ, and I’m sure a few will fit for you – but the bottom line is you just have to do it – and you will succeed when you put your mind to it.  Then, we can tackle the bigger goals!   

Use An Experienced Lawyer Marketing Coach That Has Been Successful in Practice.

As you know, we advocate marketing coaches as a way to achieve this accountability, help you see the forest and the trees, and help you put steps in place to accomplish your goals.  When I built my business, my biggest successes were either while I was directly using a coach or while using steps that my coaches taught me.  But to truly understand what you need to do, and how you need to do it, you want someone that has the training and experience to get you there.  Not someone that teaches well, but can’t do (because not sure it that really exists).  In any event, when interviewing a coach, make sure you are hiring someone that knows the lingo and the challenges – someone who has encountered it and succeeded.

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Coach Bradley

Our days are just not long enough and when many of us are working upwards of sixty hours a week, good time management skills can make the difference between feeling successful or feeling like a failure, between feeling satisfaction or disappointment. Despite having access to a vast range of time management assistance some of us remain unable to use our time well.

In working with clients the first thing I do is look for the obvious. So when Mary came to me asking for help with time management problems, I asked to see her agenda. Although Mary is a bright, highly motivated and self directed woman she has been unable to finish her dissertation and complete a certification she has spent several years working on and thousands of dollars of her money.

The thing that stood out about her agenda was that she had put all the things she claimed she wanted to do at the bottom in tiny print, not as agenda items, but floating off in a space by themselves. Tasks she is performing for others is up at the top of her agenda in large, bold letters. The obvious thing to me about her agenda is that she unconsciously sidelines herself. Because her work is not high on her list, on some level she doesn’t consider it to be important.

Mary is a very confident woman with high self esteem, but she shows a lot of resistance to getting her dissertation done. To get her back onto her own agenda, I had her write “Me First” at the top of the page in large letters. It’s not enough just to write the words, my client had to come around to the idea that her time was valuable and take responsibility for it. This didn’t happen over night.

The second obvious thing I noticed about my client’s time management habits was that she was doing a gazillion things. At first I thought she must be successful and extremely well organized to get so much done until it struck me that she was using this busyness to avoid doing her own stuff. Pretty creative eh?

Mary admitted to me that a lot of what she does all day is a distraction from doing the work she really wants to do; she even distracts herself from her distractions. She also has a bad habit of starting things she is unable or not interested in finishing—which led us to something even juicier but I don’t want to get off topic. The point is that she began to realize how much energy she puts into avoiding her own work—energy that she could put to better use elsewhere.

I asked Mary if she could put herself first. Move those tiny agenda items up to the top and write them in large letters. To make some space for her to get her work done, I asked her to prioritize the other work and if possible chop out the work she identified as busy work. She was able to drop several projects when she realized that they were distractions from what she really wants to do.

Mary is working against her resistance which is hard work. For homework, I asked her to be aware of how she distracts herself. Every minute taken to fold socks or rearrange the files takes valuable minutes and energy from the most productive part of her day. Since then, she now makes a point of seeing each part of her day through without seeking distractions, well almost.

Because the task of completing her thesis seemed overwhelming, I asked her to break it down into smaller pieces that can be managed in a few hours. Mary still distracts herself but she is aware of it and much more focused on her goals.

There can be many reasons why you are not at the top of your agenda. In most cases coaching can help you become the number one person in your life. A good coach will help you identify the patterns in your life that no longer work for you so you can achieve your goals and lead a happier and more productive life.

Coach Bradley is a Gestalt trained coach based in Toronto.

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From: ” Hotel Rubschen Braunwald”
Sent: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 16:26
To: Tedd Determan

Salü Monique & Tedd,

Danke das Mail und Eueren Beitrag eine Suche nach einen Investor.
Doch, die ist jetzt vorbei, Heute haben wir den Vertrag abgeschlossen.
Das Rubschen geht jetzt in andere Hände und wir sind ab 01. November Privat.
Neueres wissen wir im Moment nicht. 

Viele liebe Grüsse aus Braunwald

Horst und Rosli,

My friend Tedd forwarded me this news the other day. “What?” Mieshelle asked, some time afterward, upon seeing my face. She admitted later that she thought someone had died. She wasn’t far off.

“Rubschen,” I said. “It’s sold.”

That’s all I needed to say to her. For readers, however, I will add the following deciphering: the email was addressed to one of my best friends and a Feroce entrepreneur coach, Tedd Determan, who lives in Washington, D.C. I was with Tedd, crashing a World Bank party in DC, when he met his future wife, Monique. This was about 1998. Later that year, I was delighted to be able to share with Tedd the Hotel Rubschen, and Braunwald, a village in the mountains in the canton of Glarus, Switzerland. Tedd fell in love too; there was more than enough to go around.

The authors of the email, Horst and Rosli Pfannenmueller, are — were –  the owners of the hotel. Onkel Horst, wise-cracking brother of my German mother and now a Swiss citizen, came to Switzerland when he was 17 to be an apprentice chef, and bought the hotel in the early 1970s. He is, until November, the virtuoso Michelin-starred chef of the Hotel Rubschen, and Tante Rosli is the Tasmanian Devil-like whirlwind of energy that handles –handled — everything else. For me, in a life full of moving from place to place, seldom to look back, and after a decade, in the 90s, of losing one German relative after another, the Hotel  Rubschen had, until now, held the distinction of being the longest continuing place of return in my life.

My aunt and uncle’s email was a reply to Tedd and Monique, who had once again written Onkel Horst and Tante Rosli, as part of Tedd’s efforts to find a buyer for the hotel whom we would know, as opposed to a buyer we would not. Efforts in which I did not participate. Why not? Perhaps because I wanted to allow my aunt and uncle to let go, in private, of the container in which their very lives had been lived. Perhaps because I had no ideas. Perhaps because denial is a sure way to avoid feeling pain and as long as I stayed out of it I could be largely unaware of anything troubling happening.

Rubschen, light of my life, grill of venison loins, My mountainous dream, my child-like self. Rrrrrub-schen. The tip of the tongue, to further paraphrase Nabokov, sputtering Teutonically on the palate till the R elides into the ub as preface to the schen so like the chen (I see at last) that makes diminutives of Germans’ beloveds. A secret I was always eager to share with my closest friends.

So often have I gone there and seen in the unchanging mirror of those mountains, those paths, that place, how I have changed and not changed. If I could bottle the optimism and good-feeling I have felt over and over, on every arrival, as I glide from train to funicular and then begin the gravelly walk from Braunwald village to the hotel, I would be a rich man, even if I was the only person ever to nip at the bottle, before secreting it back in my desk drawer.

I remember myself there as a young boy, scampering up boulders during walks, reveling in being likened to a goat. I remember driving there at ten, with German friend of the family Harry, who thought my mindless repetition of a sentence I’d spotted in his pfennig Westerns, Zum Teufel damit – “To hell with it!” was the height of hilarity, and I recall the pride I felt in being entrusted for two weeks with the job of bartender – bartender! I returned with cousin Mike at thirteen, the pictures (rather than my memory) showing us riding like princes on the electric cart, and capering about with my uncle, none of us of course aware that Mike had nine more years, seven of them good.

At sixteen, reading outside as I suntanned my vanity in the liegestuhle, falling in love with the waitress Claudia, notwithstanding the obstacle posed by the endearing mutton-chopped waiter Hermann, who watched me demonstrate Chinese push-ups in the restaurant, went into the kitchen, and returned rubbing his nose, his tiny black eyes gleaming. At twenty-two, I was just done with college, bracing for a very large change.

At twenty-six, I was back after the disappointment that was a federal judge I’d clerked for, writing almost non-stop the story of now-gone Mike and I, praying for cloudy days on which I could stay inside with my manhood and adventurousness unimpugned by my aunt, on better days solo-climbing in just a few hours the serrated symbol of Braunwald, Ortstock mountain, realizing quite late that the pretty young Portuguese woman, a seasonal worker at the ritzier Hotel Bellevue, a friend of the Portuguese who worked at Rubschen, was a lonely newlywed and had seen in an American an exotic glamour, even rescue.

I wrote a short story after this trip, my second. “An American at the Hotel Rubschen,” it’s called. The narrator is Jorge, one of two brothers who works at the Hotel Rubschen. He meets the eponymous American when Herr Pfannenmueller asks him to go down to Braunwald village to fetch his nephew, who has just come up on the funicular. It is raining, but the American declines the offer to ride in the electric car, insisting on the longed-for walk, knowing that in the morning “the mountains will come out to play”. The first half (or two-thirds?) of this paragraph is representative of the place, the rest the license of fiction:

The hotel was smartly dressed, like an obedient Swiss child, with maple-colored wood-leaf shingles and red storm shutters. There were two floors of rooms above the restaurant. On sunnier days the sonnenterrasse was full of hikers who lounged at tables in the shade of the umbrellas that now stood dormant in the rain, and children who ran around them, and dogs who collapsed to sleep beneath them with their sides heaving. The American was greeted with a happy red face from Herr Pfannenmueller, who had just left the kitchen and was still holding a handmixer from which batter slowly dripped, and with a great storm of energy by the aggressive Frau Pfannenmueller, who hugged him tightly and clucked her tongue and welcomed him to the Hotel Rubschen where, she said to him, “you can rest your broken heart.” I struggled to understand more of their German, but the bastard Swiss dialect, like most bastards, resisted closer inquiry. I watched the American’s sure gestures and wry smile and wondered what the others would think. Rita and Rui, who loved American rock singers, Joze, who preferred the bottom of his beer glass to social discourse, lovely Emilia, who so loved new things.

I never saw any of that summer’s Portuguese workers again, but each visit back proved that between the Portuguese and Rubschen there was a match made in heaven. I returned when I was thirty, taking a break from working unhappily in the law, accompanied by my supportive and patient friend Rachel; I recall feeling grateful when she cut short a hike to the green, snow-fed lake Oberblegisee, leaving me to a memorable experience of solitude as I sat by the lake in the fog, feeling I was looking at my life from a great height.
At thirty-one, there I was again with Tedd during my first Braunwald in the snow and my first torn-up knee too, and a few years later to watch Tedd and Monique consecrate that ground in marriage, and finally last October, with Tedd and Monique and Mieshelle, who said it was like the place of her childhood dreams, that she didn’t know such places existed, and has ever since supported my dream of returning to live not far away.

Braunwald. It’s worth pointing out that when I have wanted to envision in my mind a scene of calm and happiness, or feel in my body peace, I have referred to that state of inner peace and happiness as “the Braunwald of my mind.  I loved it in a rare way, I loved it unreservedly.

And so the sense of loss I felt reading that email. Braunwald will always be there, at least, as long as I am here to be conscious of a there, but the absence of my relatives and my uncle’s food and a place that has always been mine means things will be different now.

Here it is again in English:

The era has now passed . . . Rubschen will go now into other hands . . .

Many loving wishes from Braunwald,

Horst und Rosli

For more information, see www.braunwald.ch.

Who’s coming with me?

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The New York Times today published a fairly lengthy (six pages online; is that lengthy?) abstract from the journals of the late Susan Sontag (whose Against Interpretation either influenced me more than I imagined 15 years ago or I’ve just lately been coming independently to the same conclusions).  In her journal, Sontag writes, in 1966, of an acquaintance asking her how she feels when she discovers

say, three-fourths through something I’m writing that it is mediocre, inferior.  I reply that I feel good and plow on to the end.  I’m discharging the mediocre in myself. (My excremental image of my writing.)  It’s there.

I want to get rid of it.  I can’t negate it by an act of will.  (Or can I?)  I can only allow it its voice, get it out.  Then I can do something else.

At least, I know I won’t need to do that again.

This is interesting not just for writers.  The fear of making a “mistake” paralyzes anyone and everyone who is considering a relationship or a career.  Even as I suffer from the same, human fear, I’m fascinated by its irrationality.  A mistake?  Based on what criteria?  Compared to what standard?  I’ve never met anyone who could articulate why taking a job that lasts three years and then ends, or a relationship that lasts fifteen months and ends, ought to or even could be framed as a “mistake”.  It seems to me a reckless yearning toward efficiency and perfection.  And utterly paralyzing.

Sontag’s view here will be most easily comprehended by writers who often don’t even begin to write (as others don’t even begin to live) for fear that the results will turn out displeasing to them and therefore be — wait for it — “wasted”.  But anyone should be able to draw the analogies with his or her own life.

How unfortunate, to have such a limited and impoverished view of how we spend our days.  A world of “waste” versus efficiency, notions of time well spent versus perceptions of a slip in the march of allegedly forward progress.  If we can’t consider the idea that all that we do is a learning and opening up, if our story is, rather, that by acting we can only expose our mediocrity, well, it’s best not to act at all.  At the same time, if we can’t feel in our bones that there is not, in fact, any hurry to get to a place (that there is actually no place called happiness to get to), we feel compulsively compelled to act.

Thus begins the inner war.   

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Memory, Milan Kundera has pointed out, and anyone who has attempted a memoir knows in his bones, is not recollection, it is reconstruction.

Recollection is, on the other hand, what we do in any creative act. Robert Burdette Sweet, author and teacher of writing, tells us in Writing Towards Wisdom: The Writer as Shaman that “all creating is a form of recollection — not a discovery but a rediscovery.”

In this respect, writing is indistinguishable from any spiritual discipline. The path is narrow, but rewarding. In Writing Down the Bones, or perhaps it was in Wild Mind (Natalie would understand), Natalie Goldberg talks about the day her Zen master told her that she must choose: her Zen or her writing. In his eyes, they were both a real discipline, a practice. “Only by artificially channeling dramatic energy can the natural revelation of the unconscious reveal itself to the conscious.” Sweet again. And so, Sweet advises you, in perhaps the best advice to writers struggling past writer’s block, procrastination, and self-doubt, you must struggle

to trust what your unconscious is up to, no matter how bizarre, how forbidden, how complex. The main characteristic of creative persons is an enormous tolerance for ambiguity. Permit yourself not to know. You are writing the story to find out what happens and why. Since the story is writing itself, you can’t know the ending. You can’t know the middle. You might not know the beginning.

Helping you to trust yourself, your instincts, and the wise unfoldment of your unconscious is what writing coaches do. At a client’s request, we can also add accountability: X words per day or week, Y pages, Z hours — the way to measure what you will commit to doing for yourself is up to you.

In this Writing category, I invite writing coaching clients to meet and to share, to discuss their creative problems, to offer advice and encouragement, and, of course, to do whatever your intuition (aka the subconscious) tells you to do, without any backtalk.

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