“It wasn’t until I saw this that I fully embraced the CEO role.”
My client has been thinking about retiring. He’s a deeply spiritual person and has always seen his CEO role as an obstacle to that work.
His role brings up uncomfortable feelings. Fears that his board might not like his recommendations or direction. That members of his team might leave. That he might, in his words, “die broke and alone.” It makes him want to quit. To retire. To escape to a retreat.
In our work together, he has slowly learned to see these stories as stories, rather than truth.
In our last conversation, though, he suddenly stopped.
“This job is my work to do, isn’t it?”
Tell me more.
“It seems like the patterns that I’m most uncomfortable with in my life show up most in this job. Retiring is an escape from that, but even if I retire, it’s just going to show up somewhere else, right?”
There was something about that recognition that made us both break out in laughter.
It reminded me of that Jon Kabat-Zinn book, ”Wherever You Go, There You Are.”
Whatever is showing up for you and me right now is the work that is ours to do.
Don’t run away from it.
Embrace it.
Like my client has finally embraced the spiritual work of being CEO.
His role brings up uncomfortable feelings. Fears that his board might not like his recommendations or direction. That members of his team might leave. That he might, in his words, “die broke and alone.” It makes him want to quit. To retire. To escape to a retreat.
In our work together, he has slowly learned to see these stories as stories, rather than truth.
In our last conversation, though, he suddenly stopped.
“This job is my work to do, isn’t it?”
Tell me more.
“It seems like the patterns that I’m most uncomfortable with in my life show up most in this job. Retiring is an escape from that, but even if I retire, it’s just going to show up somewhere else, right?”
There was something about that recognition that made us both break out in laughter.
It reminded me of that Jon Kabat-Zinn book, ”Wherever You Go, There You Are.”
Whatever is showing up for you and me right now is the work that is ours to do.
Don’t run away from it.
Embrace it.
Like my client has finally embraced the spiritual work of being CEO.
What’s the unique work of your current role?