The CEO with four coaches

I talked with a CEO last week who was working with four coaches—a CEO group leader, a mentor, a relationship coach, and a personal trainer.

And he said he wanted a break from all of it for a few months.

I get it—to do that much work on yourself must be exhausting.

When I see that in someone, my sense is that they are viewing their lives as a series of projects—the leadership project, the fitness project, the relationship project.

But this misses a fundamental point—the “you” that is at the center of all these projects.

You’re “you” (and my “I”) is mostly made of the stories we that we tell ourselves or have been told and believed.

If you get that you created all these projects, that you created the standards by which you judge yourself as a success or a failure, and that you will feel bad or good based on whether you met these standards, then you are beginning to see the craziness of the human condition.

We create the game and then beat ourselves up for losing it. Over and over again.

For all the times you’ve berated yourself because somehow you think it will help, has it ever worked?

The point is not to change your thoughts, it’s to see that your thoughts change.

That if you’re revved up, you get a lot of old thoughts. Thoughts that might not serve you. That probably don’t, at least in my experience.

And if you allow yourself to settle, you get fewer thoughts, and some of them will be new.

With these new insights, you will know what to do. No matter what project it’s related to. The inside takes care of the outside.

No berating required.