make each day count in service of your personal and professional mission. It's a heartfelt and actionable approach that can support many others on their own journey toward, as Matt calls it, an ignited career and an energized life.
I hope you find the wisdom in these pages similarly beneficial in discovering what matters most.
Ted Seides
Host of Capital Allocators podcast
January 2022
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book has one author but many people made it happen. First, I would like to thank my beautiful and patient wife, Sharon Fox Spielman; without her support and love, my life would be a shadow of what it is. Adam and Jamie, my boys, put up with me talking about the book, and were there when I sketched out the ACHIEVE model. Thank you for being patient throughout this process.
Next, I would like to acknowledge the folks at Wiley who put considerable effort into this book. These include Bill Falloon, Acquisitions Editor; Purvi Patel, Managing Editor; Samantha Enders, Assistant Editor; Samantha Wu, Editorial Assistant; Pradesh Kumar, Content Refinement Specialist; and Julie Kerr, Copy Editor.
I would also like to thank each of my coaching clients, especially those who believed in me and the approach in the early days. The coaching relationship is a special partnership. There is no coach without the client. You all know who you are. And I thank you.
A special shout-out to Irene McPhail. You gave me a shot with one of your most important corporate relationships.
Thank you, Peter Hazelrigg, my coach of 10 years. You gave me the permission I needed to consider another career path. You hear—and listen to—me, somehow process it, and reflect it back to me. I end our conversations with more clarity, intentionality, and conviction. You are invaluable.
I mentioned I would not share names of clients. However, I would like to thank Ted Seides, who is a client. He was also my roommate in graduate school and knows me as well as almost anybody. We navigate the personal and professional relationship well, and we carve out extra time so we can be former roomies and friends. It feels great to be understood and for someone to see my journey over a 25-year period.
Thank you, Matt Myklusch. While you are a noted author in your own right, you still took the time (where did you find it?) to partner with me to pen several of my first articles for the blog, Reflection Points. You helped find my voice, especially early on when I felt like I was shot out of a cannon and had a rush of adrenaline, emotions, and messages.
A special thank you to Laurie Rosenfield. One of your goals as a Chief People Officer was to create a coaching culture within your organization. You brought me in, and we made meaningful strides toward that goal. Thanks to you, we initiated several coaching partnerships across the company.
Thank you, Pete Moore. You taught me the Win the Day mantra, which I use and have shared with hundreds of clients. Thank you for also bringing me into your organization and letting me interact with your all-star team.
Dr. Terrence Maltbia, I want to thank you and your team at the Columbia Coaching Certification Program. The rigor of the training has helped fuel the results my clients and I have been able to achieve. And from one university to another, I would like to thank Lauren Murphy, Kristin Fitzpatrick, and the entire team at Harvard Business School's Career & Professional Development Group. Working with CPD and having the opportunity to talk to and coach students and alumni has been one of the most rewarding and meaningful endeavors in my career.
I would like to thank Michael Levin, my writing partner on Inflection Points. Without you, this book could not have become a reality. You pushed me and provided encouragement and guidance along the way – especially when it was necessary. You have become a dear friend and I am better off for having gotten to know you through this process.
And finally, I would like to thank my mom, Sherry Bennett Warshauer. You are my mom, my friend, and my inspiration. I look up to you and everything that you have done and everything that you are. I cherish our relationship.
1 WHAT'S YOUR GAME PLAN?
Professional success often conceals a gnawing conflict at one's core—a vague but undeniable sense of lack, that something is askew, off-kilter, or out of place. Even as you pile up accomplishments and accolades, and ascend through the hierarchy of your field, a lingering question resonates in your mind like a ticking clock, or like the steady drip-drip-drip of a faucet as you lie awake in the still of the night: Is this really the life I am meant to be living? Is this the life I want? And if it's not, how do I get it?
Henry David Thoreau wrote in 1854 that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,”1 locked in a cycle of daily toil interrupted only by brief bouts of leisure that offer a momentary reprieve, but fail to address the frustrating feeling of existential befuddlement.
The world has changed since Thoreau's era, but the observation remains as incisive as ever, and it applies to people from all walks of life, from trades to top-tier executive positions. They know there's more they want to get out of life, whether it's more personal satisfaction, a more meaningful contribution to the world, more community connection, more financial security, more intellectual stimulation, or simply more free time to spend alone or with family. But each time they ponder how to find what it is they want—or to know with certainty what they want in the first place—self-doubt blocks action. Is it really possible to have a life and career that is engaging, gratifying, and satisfying?
I know this kind of angst is real because I see it in the clients I coach. I know it's real because I lived under the mantle of quiet desperation myself, for many years, until I realized my purpose in helping others find theirs.
In those days, if you looked at my life from the outside, you might assume I was completely satisfied. At the start of my professional career in 1997, I was working as a salesperson for a prominent investment bank. Although I was working among people much more experienced, I was holding my own, surrounded by all kinds of high achievers. It was a thriving, heady environment, and we were on the rise.
But I wasn't ready to settle in. Something deep inside of me had questions. I felt I could be doing something different. I lacked a sense of personal connection and satisfaction with how I was spending my time. And all around me I observed many others mired in the same grind. They were earning top salaries, but no matter how much they pulled in, the money wasn't rewarding. Some of my colleagues had an irrepressible enthusiasm for the work, but others were, like me, out of place—slogging through each day in anticipation of the next paycheck.
That Thoreau passage was one that came back to me over and over again. Working in that financial ecosystem, I saw a controlled kind of desperation all around me, and I started to understand that I did not belong there. To the contrary, I felt that my real calling in life was to help people escape that kind of desperation. I knew I could help people put their feelings into words, and move those feelings into action. My desire was to be someone who could energize individual lives and careers in a way that would electrify their existence with a clear-eyed passion and a strong intentionality.
My transition from finance to coaching was a long and winding road. I've had many positions in across several industries, and each has been a valuable step to get me to where I am today. There were aspects of my financial career that I enjoyed, but I knew it could not sustain me. A moderately fulfilling life was unacceptable to me. I had to step out of that very traditional job and experience my own setbacks and detours before I
