My work with you began when I brought you in to discuss working with my COO, who was wildly talented and famously difficult to the point where the senior leadership team was routinely going around him and looking to me to give them a good reason to stay. You quickly pointed out that the circumstances we found ourselves in had a lot more to do with my leadership than his. I so respect the way you zeroed in on that during our first encounter and brought it into our conversation at the risk of losing the opportunity then and there. Being the guy in the big chair, nobody was willing to point out what you helped me see. I’m a much stronger leader for your integrity and the time we spent talking, thinking and strategizing about my leadership.

Thanks for asking me to talk about the experience of working with you, because in thinking about it, I realize I’m rather proud to say I’m a recovering rage-aholic. Your work with me changed my lifetime habit of getting exactly what I wanted by being a terrorist, basically, and then being alone with no way to enjoy it. I continually marvel at my newfound capacity to understand what’s happening with me and manage my inner experience so that I no longer bludgeon the mission-critical people around me and send them running for the hills…

Dave, my dad and I are so different, never talked, never agreed on what it would take to make our thing explode the way it should have years earlier. We were working against each other and the climate we created was a sh*tshow for our people, who were always confused and stuck in the middle. Turns out we can agree on some things, but without you, we would never have found a way to listen to one another and work things out for the good of this company. We’re still old school, new school, but he’s stopped firing me and I stopped quitting. We both know we’ve got to keep talking to understanding each other’s thinking, and we do. At the end of the day, it makes all the difference. Shocking, our numbers are way up and the team has definitely embraced our example of talking it out and working together. Forever grateful to you.

I brought Dave in to work with my sons. I wanted to step back, but had low confidence that they could handle what I spent my adult life building. Some of the work turned out to be mine. He helped me let them lead, which was a huge adjustment for me. Dave was a great help to me in letting go of some control and guiding my sons without suffocating them. Honestly, it was not what I originally had in mind, nor was it easy to do. But necessary. Throughout, Dave was relentlessly forthright, a steady and capable hand as I worked the problem.

Everything was going well and our team seemed happy with me. I intuitively thought coaching was a good idea, but I had a hard time figuring out why for me. I know another CEO that had a great experience with you, and I liked your keynote. Maybe not such great reasons to enroll a coach. Beyond a vague notion of “raising my game”, I had no idea what I’d be working on. But there was plenty. And, in the end, I got exactly that: a better game, in so many ways. You can’t think this way alone. You can’t see yourself. And you don’t realize until you’re taking what you call “the helicopter view” how many ways you could be more effective. It was a great experience working with you.