I was speaking with a lady (will call her MJ for the purpose of this article) a few days ago. MJ is in her late twenties. She is petite, 5ft 2″, tanned with straight hair that drops past her shoulders. She is a professional in the corporate world with a fortune 500 company, a hard worker and very ambitious. I know this to be true, because she has been my client for some time now.
Whilst we chatted in our last coaching session, she was in awe of an inspirational figure in her working place. Her eyes would sparkle and her face was flooded with a big smile when she was telling me about her new inspirational figure – a role model that she worked with – her boss.
She spoke about how at his age (in his 50′s) he had an extremely good physique and had taken good care of him self. He had a great family, was successful in his professional life and more importantly he seemed like a happy guy all the time. He seemed to have it all.
When I quizzed MJ if she had taken the time to speak with her boss about what helped him achieve the all round success he had, she quickly replied, ‘yes I did’- nodding at a million miles an hour.
I asked him, “What one thing would you say has helped you achieve all the success that you have? What one thing has got you to the point where you are happy in your day to day life?”
Before sharing her bosses’ reply, she quickly mentioned that she had hoped to receive a good deal of information on what he did to get to where he was.
‘Instead what I got was two words’, she said.