How I Work
Getting Started
The most effective way to get under way in my experience is an introductory conversation. This can be either a video call or a regular phone conversation. Your choice. I do not charge for this introductory conversation.
We are likely to interact through some combination of written and verbal exchanges. The particular combination that works best is what I will try to discover earl on. It will be somewhat different for you than for any other client. You are different. This is so important to learn how, and to build specifically upon. What works best for you may not work best for anyone else.
I am not a therapist. Sometimes folks have decision-making problems that really require a trained therapist’s support. I cannot be of help in such cases. I will try to see in our initial conversation whether what I do is what you really need.
The Introductory Session
This get-acquainted session is gratis. You will get a chance to interact with me live and I will get a chance to assess whether I can be of any help to you. Some decision situations I cannot effectively deal with. My experience will tell me pretty reliably which ones.
You, in turn, may prefer to deal with a different person. Perhaps someone younger or someone with different experience. That is just how things are supposed to work. Hopefully, the introductory session will give you a solid sense of how well we complement each other in styles and needs.
I like to think of myself as a “village elder” who is valued for his hard-earned experience and wisdom. Hard-earned over many years and a wide variety of experiences.
Getting to Work
Do I Provide a Coaching Agenda?
I can if you like. It will generally be a starting point for real interactions that may lead in far different directions. You are unique. A canned agenda will not likely address what you really need. A canned agenda just gets us started, wherever your real interest and needs direct.
Talking Helps
While we could exchange a multitude of useful emails, most will gain and even prefer the real-time exchange of a live conversation. So much goes on behind any such interaction. Talking is often superficial – behind which a great deal of heart-and-mind activity is occurring. You are likely thinking and feeling intensively as we converse. This is just the way us humans work.
Talking is often a thinking-feeling process that is behind the words we exchange. Very often, we talk to give our mostly subconscious hearts-and-minds the time to operate.
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Action Planning
Decisions in general lead to actions. Even if the decision is to “do nothing”. My support generally includes formulation of action steps, and may extend to working with you to adjust your actions to accommodate whatever the initial actions produce. Actions are often more for learning about decision situations rather than situation resolution.
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Coaching Closure
How Will I Know When a Decision Situation Is “Over”?
Simple answer: you will know in your heart-and-mind. I will try to help you identify the point at which my help is no longer needed or productive. I have no interest whatever in extending my assistance is no longer appropriate. What I am doing is only to be of help to the extent possible in the situation.
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Gerry – Your Coach
The Value In being an “Elder”
What I offer in my decision-making support is decades of real-life experience in helping clients of all kinds. This naturally involves a relatively lengthy process. One does not stay young in such a process but hopefully gains valuable knowledge and even wisdom. This process has existed since us humans were invented quite a while back.
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Stories
I have become a great believer over the years in the power of stories to convey in a concise, clear manner the essence of life situations. A bare statement or list of facts is dead. Stories help bring your heart-and-mind into action – which is where so much of our real understanding seems to reside. Probably began in my Harvard B-School case-writing days.
In any case, I try to incorporate stories into my work wherever appropriate and useful. You can see an example of such a story on the “My Story” page of this site. I could have simple offered a standard CV but that is really not me. Who I am is told in this brief story.