“Where do I go from here?”
People hire a coach for lots of reasons, and I could tell that she’d been waiting to ask this question. She had this presence about her that made her feel far away from me in the conversation. I was intimidated. She wasn’t stuck. She wasn’t confused. She had arrived.
It reminds me of when my daughters were little, I took them camping and I left all the food on the counter at home. A 3 and 5-year-old, 6 o’clock at night and an hour and a half away from the nearest McDonalds, the nearest anything. It was classic.
When you arrive at what you’ve wanted, it often doesn’t feel like what you hoped for. This woman was smart, entrepreneurial and unwilling to stop. And now, she had come to a place she had never been before. Nothing else to push for.
“How do you rest?” I asked.
“James, I don’t rest.” And from the way she said it, I believed her. “Sure I get sick, and even take vacations, but after a week, I’m done.” It was obvious that she’s a go-getter. And I was on the other end of the phone, doing what you’re not supposed to be doing in coaching – thinking about myself, “I’m not good at rest either.”
You get everything ready, drive an hour and a half beyond everyone else, and find yourself in a place without the thing you need most. Rest. In 2015, the ability to rest is left on the counter, as we run out the door on the next adventure.
What place does rest have in your life?
What does a retreat look like in the next 6 months?
How is rest more than an event for you?