Monthly Archives: January 2012

There is an interesting story in the Seattle Times about a trend for colleges to teach life coaching.  (Should a Life Coach Have Lived Life?)  The question is how can these just out of college grads teach life coaching if the subject is life?  Just a feedback mechanism? The article goes as far as proposing that there is nothing wrong with having a young life coach; they are only charged with helping clients to hear themselves and to hold themselves accountable to articulated goals.  I disagree.  I believe the role of a coach is broader than only sitting on the phone and listening and keeping someone on track.  There are roadblocks to avoid, pitfalls to dodge. An experienced coach will
Continue Reading >>

Tweet

Special Forces teams would often be inserted deep in foreign territory.  The twelve man team would then work with the native forces, training them and eventually leading them in combat ops.  We couldn’t force our will on them.  We had to convince them to help us help them. Later in my career, I set up exercises throughout Europe.  I had to go and convince a local government to allow us to us their facilities for a training exercise. I couldn’t force them to give or do anything for us.  They had to want to.  Using proper negotiation skills were the key. We’ve all seen instances where an irate customer is berating the counter clerk at the airport, or venting her
Continue Reading >>

Tweet

I remember a time riding a transport aircraft into a remote base near the Iraqi border. Our Intel people had told us all sorts of stories about it being surrounded by hills and being in a very indefensible spot.  There was a noticeable sense of fear on that aircraft.    Even Green Berets get scared.  The fear of being put in a bad position is understandable.  I will tell you though, most Green Berets (like everyone else)  suffer from another sort of fear at one time or another.  What holds people back Anyone can point to people who seemed to have all the talent, resources, and determination in the world, but for some reason, they were never able to reach their
Continue Reading >>

Tweet

I recently watched the movie Fireproof.  Fireproof is a message movie about the value of marriage, service and faith.  The movie has a lot of great themes that resonated with me –  strong marriage, danger, struggle for connection, coming closer to God.  There are two parts of the movie – saving marriages and coming closer to God. The marriage themes are staying the course, not leaving your partner when it gets hard, recognizing that we all make mistakes and forgiveness has to start with yourself,  you have to be will to push yourself outside of your comfort zone for a marriage to truly work and survive what life throws at it.  If you have been married for any time at
Continue Reading >>

Tweet

One of the big things we learned in Special Forces is that you have to pace yourself.  I don’t mean, take it easy and don’t give as much as possible. We learned that we had to know ourselves and give as much as possible while making sure we had enough to finish whatever the mission was. Take a sprinter on a long run with a marathoner and you’ll notice something: The fastest man in the world isn’t so fast once you get past the first 10 miles. The marathoner, who started out at a more moderate pace, slowly overtakes the sprinter who has trained himself for short distances. It’s the classic tale of the tortoise and the hare. If you
Continue Reading >>

Tweet