Careers With Paul: Thoughts from the Group Coaching Experiment & More
February Update
GroupLab Experiment
Last Thursday, I led a group coaching workshop for 8 amazing professionals in New York City. It was focused on "Redefining Your Story." Working with another coach I met, we walked them through a three-step process for knowing your story:
Make sense of your past
Understand your superpowers (strengths) and what drives you
Understand where you are going
I love helping people think through these things. I even convinced one of the attendees to share her dream more broadly (it was an awesome idea and I promised her money on the spot to be her first customer).
Other takeaways:
Having another person’s perspective was valuable - it is so hard to make sense of what we are good at. Sometimes it is much simpler for someone else to tell you "Oh you are wired to tackle big challenges"
You often don't get asked "the hard questions": One participant noted, "no one has ever asked me this question" when I asked, "Where are you going?" What's your answer?
Many people have the same issues, but not a space to talk about them. A lot of the participants resonated with the idea that they didn't really know what they wanted to do. This is normal. Just having others in the room who share that frustration can help you realize that it's not an easy thing to ever figure out.
Nerd Out On This...
I'm going to start recommending different resources in every letter. My first is one of the best books I have read, Mastery by Robert Greene.
This book is like 50+ biographies in one. It tells the story of so many of the great thinkers of our time. One interesting thing is it also tells you the stories of geniuses, but they didn't receive recognition for their great work in their time. So being right isn't always everything, you need to bring people along for the ride.
Check it out here: Mastery
Changing Hearts and Minds
Data matters, but stories change hearts and minds
I published a piece on telling powerful stories. It is focused on telling them in a business setting - in our favorite program, PowerPoint. The principles apply to any story, especially your personal story.
Check it out here: Telling Powerful Stories: 3 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller