Not every picture we paint at VIM Executive Coaching is a beautiful landscape. Not every story starts out as “Once Upon a Time.” They rarely do, you know. Life is not like that. However, it also makes life beautiful and well worth living.
The name of our executive leader in this week’s posting is unimportant. In fact, as we always work with our clients on a confidential basis, VIM Executive Coaching never violates trust. In this posting, we will even change her industry to an allied field.
There is a terrible irony in this story, as our executive leader was highly placed in the healthcare, software industry. At the time, our executive, was trying to cope with the break-up of a marriage, sweeping changes in her organization (that she knew might result in her being “redundant,”) and a child who was fighting a dreaded disease.
One Would Think
When she first came to us for executive leadership coaching, specifically in terms of her options to best cope with the organizational changes, we naturally expected a rather sad and defeated person. For we can certainly all relate to having illness in the family, relationships that have soured or the prospect of losing a job where one has mightily sacrificed.
Yet, she entered our Denver office smiling, almost bubbly, and it was neither a brave, Pollyanna-face nor forced laughter and smiles. Was she wildly happy? Not necessarily, but she was resolved and clearly in-the-fight. There was a quiet, pleasant determination. How could this be?
Unlike many of our clients, this particular leader had been meditating for years, going back, as she related, to having grown up in Taiwan. When she was barely bigger than a toddler, her father introduced her to Tai Chi Chuan, where she studied under a woman who was a renowned Master in the art. She never gave up her practice of the art and in fact, it was her main work-out routine.
Though her background was absolutely fascinating to us, we did not dwell on the deceptively effective martial art (and it certainly is), but on the lessons she had learned from a lifetime of meditation and mindfulness.
My Breath
She calmly related that she could not have been dealing with everything confronting her, were it not for the ability to still her mind and to “just breathe.” She admitted she was hardly a Zen philosopher, sage or stoic. Her relationship crumbled (though it was not our business to delve into the psychological) and it deeply wounded her, but the illness of her son nearly brought her to her knees.
“And the changes in her organization,” we reminded.
“Oh yes, that too. I can’t tell you the effort it took to build up my division.”
However, she refused to turn her drama, as she put it, into a “Country and Western Song.”
When the pain of things became too much, she would find a quiet place, or close her office door, and just breathe. She was authentic in her struggle and how she was coping, she “shared herself” with her co-workers when appropriate, and she was scrupulous about responding to people and never snapping at them in a reactive fashion.
Certainly, in time we were able to see her through and manage the change in her organization. She had no choice but to leave and successfully moved on to another employment situation. We cannot speak to the other challenges except to say that she is happy and successful, still meditates and authentically breathes in, and embraces life.