I’m the first to admit that I liked the position I had built for myself—a leader, respected in my industry, an expert, with a lot of the hard work behind me. In my industry, people knew who I was and would call me for advice. Big-time litigators and I were on a first-name basis and many of them were people I’d call business friends. Was it an ego stroke? For sure.
But I’m not all about ego. That’s just one facet of me. Coaching helped me dig deep to find all the other things I gave lip service to valuing but that I wasn’t paying real attention to. For example, I wanted to have time to do things outdoors during the week, like play golf, ride my bike, cross-country ski, snowshoe, learn pickle ball. I put off so many of these things because of a lack of time. What value did these activities speak to? My health, both physical and mental. I was compromising this value in the name of work, because by making myself available for work most of the time, that didn’t leave me the right amount of time to honor other important values.