How beating cancer got me thinking 🤔
I was diagnosed with cancer on 5 June 2020.
Just out of the first COVID confinement.
Two cancers, by the way.
Not to brag but to show how scary it was.
In-between surgeries, I resolved:
“If I beat this, I’ll examine my life for meaning and purpose.”
When I was well again, I forgot.
Life was calling me back, you see.
Six months later, something reminded me.
This post is about a part of that journey.
And what comes next.
So much to share, so few lines to do it in.
When I considered my practice for meaning and purpose, I first thought of myself as an experienced executive coach wishing to articulate her work more clearly.
What happened is that I discovered my work philosophy.
Not what I do.
What I’m about.
My practice existed but it had no centre.
I wondered, seemingly endlessly:
“Is this the right way to position myself?”
I arrived at:
“Given that this is what I stand for, how do I express it most faithfully in my work?”
Then I found my core conviction:
Career progression is mostly constrained — or enabled — by relational capacity.
That relational capacity is visible every day in the workplace relationships we often dismiss as ‘office politics’.
That’s it.
I don’t work on anything else anymore.
This newfound focus feels purposeful.
The conversations with clients are meaningful.
My philosophies — Stoicism, Zen Buddhism and Existentialism — no longer just influence me.
Somehow, they have become metabolised.
I live them more than I quote them!
A final development I’m moved to share.
I used to want to convince people — of all sorts of good things.
No longer.
I now prefer to describe reality as faithfully as possible and explore together how to reshape it.
That has changed not only how I coach.
It has also changed how I wish to communicate.
A little bit less reflection.
A little bit more conversation.
(I hope Elvis isn’t turning in his grave.)
So, as I now return after a four-week break, I’ll be posting every fortnight rather than every week.
And I’m launching a newsletter for those who wish to receive my writing directly rather than depend on LinkedIn’s capricious algorithm.
If you’d like to join me there, send me a message here or write to me at the email address below.
Onwards and forwards⛵️
📞 + 41 79 532 4754
📧 alexandra@coachingforinspiration.com
#coachingforinspiration