Curiosity and Compassion
Without intense curiosity, it becomes impossible to methodically investigate all the tangled roots of our fear and procrastination, our self-destructive habits and behaviors–and without massive compassion all our hard-earned discoveries will just lead to more guilt, self-recrimination and defeatism rather than motivate the lasting change necessary to reach our life goals. Working closely with you to unearth trigger points and self-imposed blocks, I craft customized exercises and disciplines tailored to overcome individual obstacles and stimulate confidence and routines leading to lasting positive change. Most importantly, I do so from a place of massive curiosity and heartfelt empathy and compassion (see “ginormous flub-dub” above). What do I mean by all that, well, I know what it is to struggle and I invest all my personal and professional resources, throwing whatever I’ve got into helping you successfully navigate your life challenges.
Written and Verbal Communication Skills
In addition to bringing my passionate zeal to every challenge, I’m also a consummate communicator with a proven track record as both a professional speaker and world-class copywriter (on par with the top scribes from big-five ad agencies). Drawing upon over 15 years’ experience in creating persuasive sales and marketing materials, I conduct exhaustive client interviews, gradually peeling away natural defenses, shyness and insecurities until I come to an astute understanding of your individual core competencies, unique talents and branding strengths before expertly reviewing and recrafting your resumes, bios, LinkedIn profiles, sales scripts, web content, dating profiles, mission statements, marketing materials…all the tools necessary to give you a decisive edge in the competitive marketplace of business and life itself. Put succinctly, I will not only help coach you to high performance in your personal and professional life, but I’ll ensure all the written tools that represent you and your business support the better, more productive-self I’ll help you become.
Relationship Coach
If you’re like me, you may have tried marriage or couples counseling at some point in your life and found it wanting, and by that I mean next to friggin’ useless. Don’t get me wrong, therapy has its place and is of tremendous help – particularly when building your sense of self and dealing with issues related to past trauma, but too many therapists rely on a talk-only regimen that fails to yield optimal results. As crucial as personal insight is, by itself, it doesn’t lead to actual change… but I know what does. Nano-changes that lead to micro changes that lead to teeny-tiny changes which lead to small changes and so on. Bottom line: change leads to change. And change is action. If you truly want to change the direction of your troubled or failing relationship, you must take action. The key here is, that initial action doesn’t have to be some massively disruptive force; when it comes to meaningful change that lasts, the smaller the start, the more likely you will build traction toward consistent progress, rather than becoming quickly overwhelmed and giving up.
Picture yourself on a vast, seemingly endless sea in a small sail boat. If you move that boat’s rudder just a hair, you won’t notice much at first, but gradually, over time, even an infinitesimal adjustment at the outset of your journey will lead to a dramatically different endpoint. With some further small adjustments to the sail, the wind and keel will enable further course corrections, turning your slight change into a major new destination. But to get somewhere different you’ve got to start with some form of action. If you simply sit on deck with your partner and therapist recounting your profound new knowledge of navigation then postulate how much you’d love to change course and land on that life-sustaining island with the hot-bodied, scantily-clad reality TV stars (rather than the sharp rocks your heading for) what good would all the talk or wisdom in the world do? As you near those deadly rocks, in the throes of your consuming panic, you look at your beleaguered partner and are suddenly struck by another profound insight “Hey, I think this thing actually has a motor and a full tank of gas.” Without starting the motor, what frickin’ difference does it make?
No matter what incredible realizations your marital counselor or therapist may have helped you come to, if you weren’t given concrete steps and behavior-based exercises to turn those insights into action, your relationship counselor failed you. I will not fail you. That is not to say every relationship is salvageable – with my help or anyone else’s, it means that saving a relationship takes more than talk, understanding or even communication. It takes action, accountability and want-to by both parties. Therapy has its place (CBT/DBT in particular), and coaching is not therapy. While therapy often strives to uncover the origin of our behaviors, coaching concentrates on a “from this point forward” approach, delivering exercises, assignments and tools tailored to promote that almost imperceptible course correction (spawned by action) that over time can lead to dramatic life change.
It’s paramount to gain insight, into ourselves and into our partners, but simply “talking” once a week to me or anyone else won’t turn that insight into actionable steps that will lead to positive, transformative change. I will help both you and your loved one gain the critical insight you need and turn that wisdom into concrete action that will ensure you improve your overall communication and build go-to coping mechanisms and bounce-back strategies to employ when you’re feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, unheard, stressed out, angry or resentful.
In my life coaching business, I leverage cutting-edge research and diagnostic skills while I work closely with clients to identify and defuse potential triggers, reshape deceptive self-perceptions, build self-confidence and recognize destructive patterns and habits–all leading to healthier relationships through a healthier you.
When you and your significant other agree to be coached by me, I do a hell of a lot more than just listen intently and ask “how does that make you feel?”. I take in all your emotional intensity, all the feelings conveyed, every bit of detailed information I can before creating practical exercises and tools that I customize to meet both of your needs, factoring in your individual learning modes and personal comfort levels–employing real measures empowering you to tone down your triggers and relieve your pain points. And while I make sure I hear everything you’re saying, I won’t just sit there during our session; I will provide specific exercises I want you both to try and we will work together diligently to review the effectiveness of our joint plan as we continue modifying our approach until you both agree you’re headed in the right direction, a path that moves you forward, rather than spinning your wheels churning up the same old crap.
Sometimes couples come to me seeking an amicable separation and end up rebuilding their relationship, sometimes despite both party’s best efforts to reunite the best the path forward may turn out to be that amicable split. The most important factor is to learn from and do our best to correct the mistakes we make and work diligently to modify self-defeating and destructive behaviors so that we not only give our current relationship a fighting chance, but gradually pare down our very human luggage from that check-in trunk to some handsome carry-on Tumi’s that will not only improve our current situation but ensure we don’t repeat and recycle behaviors that would lead to a similar result in our next relationship – should you determine separation to be the best way forward.
To get to what works for your relationship, I might leverage the latest behavioral science from the West and mix it with peer-reviewed mindfulness exercises based on thousand-year-old traditions from the East. If whatever we come up with doesn’t show promise we’ll either tweak it or scrap it until we arrive at something that does. I work my ass off to discover and deliver the most meaningful results for you. For example, one of many go-to tools I use to help both individuals and couples navigate personal relationships is what I refer to as my “Lock Down Corner” strategy. Based on the need for top NFL cornerbacks – and all premier athletes and competitors for that matter – to retain a short memory (in this case forgetting that just-completed pass in order to successfully defend the next long ball), I work closely with my clients to shorten their retention of information that doesn’t serve their long-term interests. This technique effectively counteracts your trigger pressure, easing your foot off your emotional accelerator so that you can reflect before speaking or acting out in resentment or anger. In our relationships with loved ones, often those few words said or that brief cold shoulder brandished in the heat of the moment is piled on top of past slights imagined or real, adding up to an explosive reaction that dwarves the immediate perceived affront. To maintain more harmonious relationships, I help my clients attain greater mindfulness, addressing the situation at hand like the isolated incident it is, and confronting it without the added-on anger or intensity (or stockpiling) that results from grouping perceived or real slights into a noxious slag of rage that seems to come from nowhere.
When we do our best to shorten our memories and live in the present, we allow our partners the same break we deserve when we too resort to our petty frustrations, annoying nitpicking, occasional bitching or sudden temper flares. It’s a process and it takes a great deal of work to undo all the baggage we’ve allowed to build-up or simply tamped down for so many years – but the results can be extraordinary – if not exactly lifesaving, relationship-saving. And that is only one of the many techniques in my relationship-mending arsenal. Contact me now for a free couples’ coaching consultation.
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Life Coach
My Story
I grew up in Nebraska where I developed a habit for nodding and saying hello to fellow pedestrians and holding doors open for longer than necessary, skills that didn’t serve me well when my educational pursuits took me from the Omaha Jesuits of Creighton University to the West Village streets of NYU in downtown Manhattan. After graduating with a BFA, in the middle of the 88’ Stock Market Crash, I started rewriting resumes for fellow NYU alums and friends that had visited the campus employment office – yet were still having trouble finding work in a tight economy with resumes I deemed “shitty” at best. I proved a natural, starting my own executive resume and career coaching firm and making every possible mistake in the process. On a lark, I joined my lovely girlfriend at the time in applying for a caseworker job with the City of New York, counseling people with AIDS in the devastated Village and Hell’s Kitchen communities. Because I wrote my own resume, of course I was hired immediately – well before my girlfriend who after that experience entrusted me to write all her future resumes, but enough of that. Counseling dying people who were often not much older than myself proved too much however, for this younger version of me who had yet to have any real counseling or grief coping skills and so I transferred into the Foster Care program after a year, where I counseled kids and foster parents instead. While both jobs proved some of the most rewarding human experiences of my life, 20-something me was perhaps not as ecstatic about this life-altering experience, which among other things included watching the light go out of a kid’s eyes at the age of 3 or 4 when he begins to comprehend the hardship of being “underprivileged” and poor.
Still writing professional resumes, cover letters and ad copy on the side for clients who found me via word-of-mouth, I determined it was time to learn from my mistakes. I found a mentor in Life and Career Coach (and resume guru) George Gruber, where I learned the craft of life coaching, sales, business, bookkeeping and charging what you’re worth. I in turn taught George a few things about persuasive writing before opening my own business a couple years later. I began my business as “Advantage Resumes” when we used to have those things called Yellow Pages and they were alphabetized, before rebranding to The Resume Genius, New York City’s premiere career coaching and executive resume service. I later transitioned the business into a more holistic coaching firm focusing on life, career and dating coaching services, while also handling copywriting, branding and executive resume preparation duties.
My career was cut short by a massive case of shingles that resulted in a lifelong chronic pain disability that would leave me in tears, curled up fetally next to my pit bull and pug. So severe was the pain that when it ripped and burned through my neurological system it also caused “essential tremor” in my hands, basically that tremor you’d normally get when you’re 80. I think “essential” is a prime example of bad marketing as I find nothing “essential” about the fucking tremor. Fortunately, while on a date with a lovely woman many years ago, I was told to “just own it” and I’ve done so ever since (for the most part). Thanks to modern advancements in medicine, I was recently fortunate enough to receive a DRG Implant, a breakthrough technology just approved in the United States that basically serves as a pacemaker for pain, delivering interrupting electronic signals to the dorsal root ganglia nerves in the spine, delivered from a battery in my ass. Although my ass modeling days are over, the device has successfully combatted the most egregious, tear-provoking pain and allowed me to return to the business I love, the purpose I was meant for, that of helping you get over.
My trials with chronic pain and “hidden” disability have given me keen insight into not only what it takes to battle agonizing pain and disability, but how to harness the life lessons I’ve learned and turn them into tools for others with disabilities, often greater than my own. I teach them how to organize their lives, fight depression, summon social courage and return to the workplace when possible. I strongly believe that my trials with chronic pain not only inform other disabled people, but help me empathize with people of all different walks of life facing seemingly insurmountable situations and challenges of all kinds in their personal and professional lives.
