Support for Executives

Sometimes YOU are the one operating in the red.

Are you burning the candle at both ends… sleeping only a few hours at night, skipping workouts, and eating whatever’s convenient?

Do you feel torn and scattered… volleyed about by work politics, endless meetings, business development deals, and “playing the game”?

You remember when you were first starting out, feeling invincible, unstoppable, dreaming about getting to this place, and now you wonder if this is all there is. Can you do better? Is there a next level? You have ideas for new projects, businesses, acquisitions, but you don’t know where to start with everything on your plate. You’re stymied, stagnated. You’ve plateaued.

You wish you could talk to that kid who just started; what you would say? You think about lost empires, lost opportunities, both personal and private. Sometimes, regret fills your day, and each new business idea brings up the past. All that you could have, should have, or would have done.

Meanwhile, things are falling apart at home. Your spouse feels neglected, and you see your children for only minutes each day until the busy weekend hits with golf outings and social obligations. The business approach you’ve honed so carefully at work doesn’t seem to cut it at home. Somehow, approaching family with “performance and outcomes” in mind fails spectacularly. How can you be one way at work and suddenly switch gears to become someone else entirely at home?

It feels impossible to meld these two worlds, and you always feel torn, guilty, resentful.

Is this the best you can do?

One day, you were killing it. Landing clients, closing deals, building the business. Then, something happened. A bad deal, a client left, a project went awry. Now, it’s like the yips. You question yourself constantly. You pause before clicking send on emails, find yourself sweating and stumbling over your words when drumming up new business. You don’t trust yourself anymore.

What if this goes wrong? What if I don’t know what I’m doing? What if they trusted the wrong person?

You feel like an imposter. You wonder if everyone can see it. You glance over at colleagues during meetings wondering who’s gunning for your role. You think about the competition constantly, questioning whether you’re ever going to get your mojo back. What if you’ve peaked?

Your partner doesn’t seem to get this. If only you could talk to someone about how it feels to have the world on your shoulders: work, bills, home, children. Everything depends on you. The weight of it slopes your shoulders, keeps you sitting in your car in the garage for ten minutes before you go in the house. Even on your best days, this is always waiting for you. Obligation. Expectation.

You find yourself sacrificing sleep to find more time to work or play with the kids. I can sleep when I’m dead, you tell yourself. Reaction time is frayed, and your performance feels shaky. You rely on more to get by in your day: more coffee, more alcohol, more food. Still, your hands tremble when you touch your steering wheel.

You tell yourself that if you act like a shark and keep moving forward, things will at least stay the same. Nothing will fail if you keep doing that. Some health scares cause minor earthquakes, but still, you move forward. But then that nagging question: “Is the “same” good enough?”

I’m here to help.

I can help you maximize your performance. Here’s how we’ll do it…

Stress management…

You’re on edge, frayed, and tired. Everything seems like a fire drill. You try to prioritize, but everything seems to be a priority. Your mind wanders during conversations to something else you have to do. You miss out on important details, and that just makes you more stressed.

When the brain feels stress, it treats it like a mortal threat. Your brain sends a cascade of hormones, like cortisol, throughout your body and shuts down the prefrontal cortex – the reasoning section – to handle the threat. This is why you feel like you can’t think of the right words when you’re nervous, go blank when giving a presentation, or say things you don’t mean during arguments. The thinking part of your brain is in sleep mode. The fight/flight/freeze part of your brain is in control.

There is no way to operate in peak performance when you are stressed. The brain just doesn’t work that way.

Returning to calm takes a few specialized techniques that relax the limbic system response (the part of your brain responding to stress). I’ll show you several ways to ease your immediate response, and techniques to practice until it becomes rote. Over time, exercising this part of your body will result in less stress overall and a better chance of nailing that presentation, client relationship, and situations at home.

We’ll also take a look at some of the automatic thoughts that tend to accompany the stress you feel (i.e., “I’m not good enough,” “they’ll see I can’t hack it after all”). Things like this give executives the yips, cause downfalls of the powerful, and major errors when people try to over-correct. By examining some of these thoughts, breaking through negative thought patterns, and finding triggers, we can right the ship and get you on your way.

Work-life balance…

It feels like there’s no way to be everything to everyone, and… you’re absolutely right. Life requires balance. Killing it all week long and missing out on family, friends, and hobbies results in burnout, and burnout = stress (see above). You might feel like a warrior doing battle with Wall Street, but even soldiers get furlough for a reason.

We’ll take a practical look at the places in your life that lack balance, get you reconnected with friends and family, and return you to the balance you need to slay.

Sometimes, the solutions are simple, like breaking out that schedule and blasting through barriers. Other times, the solution is more complicated, your job more complex and demanding, and we need to be more creative with our approach.

Together, we’ll examine where you need to set boundaries, the relationships in your life, the people who interact with it, and your own needs and obligations. Afterward, you’ll confidently prioritize the work issues that are true emergencies and the times you can leave the office early to grab dinner with your old crew.

Relationship skills…

Some people are closers. They walk into the room, and they own it. Clients become friends. Holiday cards and gift baskets flood their offices just for the privilege of working with them. You can’t figure out how they do it. You did the work, studying hard, going to the right schools, 80-hour weeks as an entry-level employee until you worked your way up, but then you hit a ceiling. No one ever told you being Master of the Living Room was a skill you needed to get to the top.

Or, maybe you are that person. Charming to a fault. You know how to get them in the room, signing on the dotted line. The C-Suite has your name on a door. But, when you try it at home, you get nothing back but eye-rolling. You get told to be honest a lot, to “get in touch with your feelings,” to “share more.” You talk and talk, but it’s never anything they want to hear. What is even happening? How can you say exactly the right thing at work and exactly the wrong thing at home?

No matter the issue that brings you here, relationships and communication are my jam. Sometimes, it’s as simple as timing. You say the right thing at the wrong time when someone is neither ready nor equipped to hear it. Sometimes, it’s etiquette. Business meetings and relationships, particularly cross-cultural ones, require an in-depth knowledge of etiquette and cultural competency. Other times, the content is correct, but the phrasing is off.

Together, we’ll analyze your communications, get to the root of the problem, and collaborate on better ways to communicate in the future. Better communication = better relationships. Killing it at work and home can be all in what you say.

Together, we’ll find ways to work smarter, not harder, so you can enjoy all the success you’ve worked so hard to create.

Investing in yourself is the right thing to do…

 It’s time to invest in you. To see what happens when you reach your full potential, when you blast through barriers, burnout, and fatigue.

It’s time to maximize your relationships and take your business to the next level. You’re here. You’ve taken the first step. All it takes is one more.

Call me today for a complimentary 20-minute consultation: (310) 717-4239.