Mental Health #5: Meeting My Executive Coach (Classic)

What's up, everyone. This is Alex Lieberman, co-founder and Executive Chairman of Morning Brew. Welcome back to Founder’s Journal, my personal audio diary, where I give you, the business builder, the tools you need to think better in order to build better, whether that's building a business, a team, or a new product. This week on Founder’s Journal, we're doing things a little differently. We're dropping a mini series focused on mental health. I'll talk about my own battle with anxiety, the effects social media has on our psyche, and break down my own mental health routine. That means instead of just one episode Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, this week we're giving you two: a new show that you won't want to miss, plus a classic episode you maybe haven't heard before. In today's classic episode, originally published on March 17th, 2021, I talk about my first meeting with my executive coach. Let's hop into it.

My first executive coaching session

Some people call it executive coaching. Some people call it coaching. I call it professional coaching. Some people compare coaching to therapy. Others assume it's only reserved for top-level executives, but I believe that coaching is something that every professional should have access to and should seriously consider trying out at some point in the near future. I had my first executive coaching session ever, and I thought it'd be helpful to share what this experience was like for me and what my coach and I spoke about.

On Monday, I had my first bi-monthly zoom call with Ryan, who's my new executive coach. Honestly, I even hate using that word because it perpetuates this idea that you have to be an executive to have this coach. So I'm just going to call him coach, Coach Ryan. Given that Ryan and I already knew each other prior to coaching, we didn't start the session with formal introductions or the types of pleasantries that you maybe would share in a new relationship. We just dove right in. We got into chatting and started to hone in on some of the themes that were most nagging at me, professionally and personally. And it's interesting because I found that a lot of the things that affect me professionally and impact my work are the same things that affect me personally.

A good coach is an active listener

The discussion was similar to one I would have with my therapist, which as a lot of Founder’s Journal listeners know, I also see on a bi-weekly or monthly basis. I noticed that Ryan asked a lot of questions to get the full picture of my experiences and he was voraciously taking notes as I was talking, and so very clearly he was actively listening to what I had to say. I'm not sure if you've taken the time to identify what active listening looks like, but for me, I can tell when someone is actively listening because they're reacting to your body language and they aren't trying to immediately chime in after you've finished speaking. I noticed that from the beginning, every time I would finish saying something, I would feel this awkward pause for like 10 seconds where Ryan was waiting to see if I was done. And I realized this pause was just because he knew his default wasn't just to start speaking. He was also processing the information that I had just talked about. It's, it's almost like the feeling I get when I watch an Elon Musk interview, especially like on Joe Rogan or when he's done the interview with Lex Fridman. And you'll see, after someone asks a question, Elon will take like a painfully awkward amount of time to process what he was just asked, like 20 to 30 seconds with utter silence. That's what it felt like at times of Ryan, but not in a bad way. Like he was just really trying to be thoughtful about what he said to me. So I'm going to take you through the different things we spoke about in our first session.

Broaching codependency

The first topic was this concept of codependency, whether it's in my personal relationship with my fiancee or my close work relationships at the Brew, I allow the emotions and the opinions of others to weigh heavily on my own emotions. What does that look like in practice? Well, it could look like me saying yes to going out for dinner with my fiancee, rather than ordering in, because I'll be worried that she's going to be mad if I decide I want to just stay in for dinner. It's the fear of her being mad in that scenario that's driving me to make a decision that isn't necessarily optimal for my own happiness. Another example would be my fiancee asking me to go on a run together and me saying yes, even though all I want to do is work out on my own. I fear her frustration from us not doing a collaborative workout. At work, it could look like my co-founder or someone else that I work with closely sending a message to me that I perceive to be frustrated and upset. And my perception of that message causes me to act in a certain way, because I want to appease them. I'm worried that they're mad at me. And I have found that this has really ramped up in a remote work environment because it is just so difficult to communicate and receive tone. When you're typing back and forth on Slack or email. I've just found it harder and harder to really understand the emotional state of people in business when we're working remotely. And I just care so much about our relationships and, candidly, what other people think. 

Maintaining good relationships

Something my coach and I spoke about that we're going to continue to work through is maintaining great relationships with those close to me, but also in good relationships, you need to have healthy, emotional boundaries. And it is very possible. And I want to work towards this place where I can really value someone without having their emotions dictate my emotions. And Ryan, my coach, used this great analogy of an octopus where he said, you are codependent with other people when your tentacles are latched onto them. So in order to continue to survive and thrive, your actions are dictated by their actions. I need to figure out ways to detach my tentacles while maintaining strong relationships with clear boundaries, both personally and professionally. So that was the first major bucket that we talked about. The second theme was about rewiring my brain about what it means to be productive.

Effort does not equal productivity

I've spoken about this at length on Founder’s Journal in the past, but my default setting as a professional has always been to equate productivity to effort. So if I am checking things off a to-do list, I feel great if I don't, I don't feel great. And the issue with this definition of productivity is that as I've grown as a professional and I've leveled up at Morning Brew, the true definition of being productive to the business looks very different. As you get more senior at a company, productive looks a lot more like reading, thinking, asking questions, delegating, coming up with new ideas versus doing, doing, doing. See the issue with that is, if I am constantly wired to this old idea of being productive, I will actually be way less productive and less value add in my current role. Ryan and I even joked about what our classic tells are that him and I have when we start trying to be productive through effort and go back to our old ways. So for me, what that looks like is listening to podcasts while running. Obviously I don't get pumped up from listening to a podcast while being on a three mile run, obviously in a perfect world. I'd be listening to music that got me going, but it's how I justify to myself that I'm being productive while I'm exercising. One thing my coach does that he shared with me is he forces himself to do things to eliminate effort and busy-ness. So for him, that means him going to walk his dog and not hopping on a phone call or answering emails, but literally just being and enjoying the outdoors. Like I, he literally just said enjoying squirrels and enjoying looking around him. For me that could look like watching a TV show with my fiancee without messaging people on Slack or reading a business article with my laptop on my lap. It's the small exposures that will make it easier to reframe what productivity means and how it doesn't just mean effort. The hope is that these small efforts, these small examples I just shared with you, can compound on themselves and it can become a habit over time. 

Be both open-minded and maintain strong opinions

Now, the third theme that we spoke about was how to be both open-minded and have strong opinions about certain things. You know, something that I've always prided myself on is my ability to be open-minded and see multiple perspectives around a given topic or issue. I believe that it has helped me to create safety for co-workers to share ideas and opinions without any form of judgment. It's given me the ability to be empathetic in a number of work relationships. But on the other side of that coin and something I have honestly been really self-conscious about, is how do I feel really strong conviction about something or feel really opinionated about something if I'm always so open-minded, and laissez-faire? While I think it's important to be open-minded, I also think it's important to be able to form strong views of the world, where the world is going, and where I want to play in that. That's how you end up making bets as a founder. Having strong views helps me, or really any builder, decide where to prioritize time based on where the puck is going. And also, I just think in general, as a society, people are programmed to gravitate towards other people who have strong views of the world and make calls where the world is going. The analogy I use is people want to be like and follow the Babe Ruths of business who point to the outfield. People love this concept of being the visionary, that the picker who sees something before everyone else sees it. You know, when we talk about like the great recession and the smartest minds from the great recession, it's the people who called the housing crisis when no one else was.

Spending time effectively

And the fourth and final theme that Ryan and I spoke about was how to most effectively spend my time. You know, some people say you should spend time on the things that make you happy and give you positive energy. Other people would say, spend your time on the things that you're best at. In a perfect world, obviously we do both. We would spend all of our time on the things that we love most and we're really great at. But I think that a pretty great scenario is spending time on the things you're really, really good at because those things can turn into things you really like. Generally when you're good at things, you enjoy doing them because you get the social validation of being good at it. Leaning into your superpowers gives you the opportunity to ultimately spend time on the things you liked doing. 

I want to hear from you

All in all, during this 80-minute first session that Ryan and I had, we got into some of the biggest questions, concerns, and insecurities that I have around my career, which obviously bleeds into my personal life as well. It wasn't all answers, but to me, it set a great foundation for exploring some of the things that will ultimately, when I do find the answers make me most fulfilled and most successful in my career and life in general. I've said it in the past and then going to keep saying it, coaching can benefit literally every professional. That can come in the form of a literal coach or just a person that you trust and who's a great listener. It can be a peer of yours. With that, if you have any questions at all about coaching or about what I talk about with my executive coach Ryan, just shoot me an email at alex@morningbrew.com. I'd love to chat about the topic with you. And while you're at it, please subscribe to Founder’s Journal on the podcast player of your choice. It is the number one way that we grow the show. It's the number one way to get into the top 10 on the podcast charts. That's how new people find out about Founder’s Journal every single day. As always, thank you so much for listening to Founder’s Journal and I'll catch you next episode.