Steve’s Story

Why I love what I do and do what I love.

I will never forget how polite and reserved Steve was during our first phone call.

His wife, my friend, has mentioned to him a few details about my work with Engineers and he asked if he could speak with me over the phone.

Steve was a software Engineer, an exceptionally talented one. Starting in high school he has taught himself all the ins and outs of working with the computer. In college he read everything he could find that was connected to information and software technology. Technology was his passion. He had a continuous burning desire to learn more and become better at what he was doing.

When he called me, he was working for a boss who underworked him and tried to control his professional development by holding him back from leadership roles. His boss felt threatened and was simply incapable of accepting Steve’s expertise in some areas where he himself felt short.

This environment left Steve unhappy with his job, frustrated and disengaged, and on top of all these his boss pinned him against his team members. Steve’s desire was to be part of a team where everyone would say, “Good morning, how are you today?” and would really mean it, too. He wanted to be given an opportunity to become a leader and serve others. He wanted to be recognized for his work, and respected for his contributions and ideas. And he greatly wanted someone to help him reach his full potential in order to bring value to his company and to make a difference in his community. He thought his boss would help him because he believed this was what leaders did. Yet, not his boss.

After many tries and failures, he lost hope and started blaming himself for not being able to improve his relationship with his boss, his team and for losing faith in his capabilities.

I had a sense the situation at Steve’s work was so bad that for him my work seemed like the last resort.

99% of the time I don’t consider working with clients in such situations. I have never had a magic wand to give people HOPE. They either have HOPE or they have to find it first before calling on my help.

Yet, this time I made an exception.

What good are our rules if we don’t break them from time to time?

I wanted to honor Steve’s courage of reaching out. I mean how many husbands listen and actually call someone up for help – someone their wife has suggested?

I also wanted to recognize Steve for his effort and hear him out. So, I decided to use a different strategy on our first call.

When he casually asked me “So, what do you actually do?” I knew it was the moment. I knew he was curious to hear about all the ways I might be able to help him. He wanted to examine the “rope” before he committing to using it to climb out of the dark hole.

Yet, instead of presenting him the “rope” I told him all the things I wouldn’t do for him:

• I wouldn’t be his friend or please him by telling him what he wanted to hear. INSTEAD I would serve him by hiding nothing and holding nothing back.

• I wouldn’t give him answers to his questions. INSTEAD I would upgrade the quality of the questions he was living into.

• I wouldn’t hold him accountable for the goals he said he wanted. INSTEAD I would help him find a mission so big and inspirational that nothing would stop him from achieving it.

• I wouldn’t give him advice or suggestions. INSTEAD I would create a space where his own life-changing powerful insights can show up.

He paused. I sensed he was surprised. It was this bold move that won him over. He suddenly was interested. He told me he had a similar list in his head and it felt like I had read his mind.

Some of us know best what we don’t want and put little effort in discovering what we do want.

After a few more questions he asked how it would look like if we would work together.

First, I told him, he had to find some reserved HOPE deep inside of him. Having HOPE is a requirement to believe in self transformation.

“Great”, he said “I will let you know as soon as I find some.”

A couple of days later he did.

I really think Steve didn’t make that phone call with the intention to enter in a coaching partnership that would last for over two years.

He, like every good Engineer, knew something was not working in the current process and he wanted to find out what the problem was. And what I love about Engineers is they have learned to take themselves out of the equation and look for solutions objectively.

Steve didn’t see himself as the problem, yet slowly he discovered he held the answer to the solution.

Slowly Steve gained trust in himself and in my method of coaching. He believed when I told him I wasn’t on a mission to change him or to fix him. Actually, I have never taken on clients who wanted to be “fixed.”

I believe in people being whole, capable, creative, and resourceful.

On those rare occasions when Steve would lose faith in himself and his abilities, I would remind him I believed in him even if he didn’t believe in himself.

The moment that blew everything up for Steve happened on a rainy and cloudy day at the beginning of fall. We have just celebrated our 2-years of coaching partnership a few weeks prior. Besides the changes in the weather, Steve seemed present and ready to explore like at any other coaching session.

He was answering a question when I stopped him and asked him to repeat his answer. “I need to finish what I have committed to. I owe it to myself and to others. Until then I cannot start anything new.” He paused. He kept silent. I did, too. It seemed like time stopped and for a second I could not hear the rain falling. Like the whole world was silent for Steve. Something was about to happen.

By this time I was used to Steve’s pauses and he was, too. He used them to notice what had showed up in his mind, heart and his body in those particular moments.

Finally, he said “Or do I?”

For almost all his adult life Steve has been committing himself to people, situations, feelings, and “stuff” that hasn’t been serving him anymore; in some cases has even been hurting him. Yet, he was so committed to his “commitments” he has fallen prisoner to them. He became so overwhelmed he could not commit to starting any “new stuff” in his life, like a new job or his own business, a new family or being a new father.

Steve saw himself at the bottom of a deep dark hole again.

“So, what would need to happen for you to finish your commitments AND to start the life that you always wanted?” I asked.

In that moment Steve understood the power of one word: AND.

For him living life was like writing codes. Once he started one code, he had to finish it before starting another one. Life was linear and he had started so many codes in the past there wasn’t any space nor memory on his RAM to start anything else. The focus was on finishing, and on keeping the commitments, and on doing right by being responsible, and on sticking with the status quo – EVEN IF the old wasn’t serving him anymore.

But he has changed over the past 2 years.

In that moment he realized he had to upgrade his belief system. It was like he realized his beloved Windows 7 was no longer compatible with his current laptop. No doubt some features were still working (according to him) but he was blind to how many he could not access anymore, nor had any knowledge about even existing.

So, he decided to upgrade.

And what happened?

He opened his heart and mind to accept change. He wasn’t afraid anymore to say no to things that didn’t align with his values, and to say yes to things that aligned with what he believed in.

Within a month a new job opportunity knocked on his door. A new job in a new country where he has never been before. A new place where he could start a new life together with his new family. His wife has been dreaming about moving for a while, but he couldn’t imagine leaving their home. Suddenly, he saw the possibility for them, as a family to pursue their dreams.

For the first time he really believed he wouldn’t screw it up. He believed he would make it and thus all of them would, together.

And, as life has it, in less than a month they moved.

He accepted the new job and packed up everything he wanted to take to start this new life with.

In our last session Steve told me he got everything he wanted from our coaching partnership and more. He found himself.

He met his true self, he saw his mistakes, he uncovered his zone of genius, and he discovered he hasn’t know what “a happy man” was.

He grew up with an unhappy father as his role model and had confused unhappy with happy.

Nor did he know what “a happy family” was.

All he knew was how to re-create his parents’ version – one far from being a “happy” one.

As a result of our coaching partnership, Steve had understood he couldn’t have a happy life and a happy family because he literally hasn’t created it YET.

He STOPPED blaming THEM and HIMSELF for being unhappy and living an unhappy life in an unhappy marriage doing an unhappy job.

He STARTED seeing HIMSELF as the CREATOR & SOLUTION – not as the problem.

He STARTED seeing his job as the avenue to unleash his potential and to make a difference in others’ lives – not as a place where others needed to see him first and recognize his genius.

He STARTED seeing his wife as someone to LOVE UNCONDITIONALLY while accepting her with all her imperfectionisms  – not as someone to depend on for external validation and acceptance.

“Great Engineers don’t solve just any kind of problems,“ Steve said once. “They solve for the RIGHT problems.”

For Steve, the problem and the RIGHT solution was RIGHT within himself for all these years.