I offer highly confidential, in-depth coaching and consultation services to no more than 9-10 individuals or groups a year on an application basis. I help lawyers learn to love themselves, enjoy their work, manage their colleagues, direct their lives, and make the highest contribution to culture of which they are capable.  My approach is not about fixing you.  It’s about finding you, and bringing out more of who you are meant to be.

Who I work with.

I specialize in a unique form of personal development for professionals already operating at an advanced cognitive level as experts in their field, and who are ready for something more.

I work with exclusively with professionals who want better returns from the substantial investment they have already made in themselves. What you have achieved so far makes you both available and qualified to engage in an even larger life.  I’m eager to help make this life happen. As a coach, I work as a personal advocate, protector, sustainer and friend of the highest intention of professionals who are interested in a new and better way of being.  Taking this exciting step is very difficult to do alone.  It will include the best of who you currently are, and go beyond.

What I Do.

Some of my clients are motivated simply by a desire to learn and grow. But for many, our work will start with a presenting condition that is pushing you. This is some place where you are stuck, do not feel free, and which is causing pain—perhaps a great deal of it. Once the source of the condition is identified, it can be changed. The first step is an accurate diagnosis. This is where many coaches fail right out of the starting gate. They don’t take the time to see you.

It’s common to see a state of affairs as a ‘problem’ that should have some easy fix if you just knew what this fix was. Attorneys are problem solvers. We manage work flow, organize files, have hiring procedures, calendar our deadlines, and acquire skills. These problems are handled by finding ‘best practices,’ and applying these practices. However, most of the things that keep lawyers stuck in life, and firms in turmoil, cannot be solved with the same insights and tools that work for your filing cabinet. If the condition could be solved this way, you would have solved it already. Your problem needs a better diagnosis.

Just for fun, let’s look at a few possibilities:

• Your ‘problem’ might be something generated by a polarity—a productive and necessary tension between opposites— it’s not a problem to be solved but a creative tension that you need to see, value, and learn to manage.
• The condition may also be generated by what I call your ‘construct’, a habitual way of thinking, seeing, and being in the world that creates and re-creates the same occasions of experience time after time.
• What you're experiencing might be something that is coming from an un-lit part of yourself that is screaming for attention—a new capacity that needs to be given a life in the world.
• What’s happening might not be anything that is being caused by you, but simply the inevitable result of a context (social system) that you’ve adopted without knowing you have.
• It may just be a signal that you’ve completed a stage of development, and that you are ready for a natural move to the next, more expansive level.
• What's happening to you might just be the most exciting invitation you will ever receive—a call to embrace a whole new way of being that is free for a larger purpose.  A new self with new values and capacities may be around your corner. That self needs to be seen, nurtured, and brought into the world.

These are just a sampling.  Unless we address the root causes, you're likely to stay in the same boat and recreate the same thing all over again. Of course, you can continue to rearrange the deck chairs, but is that really what you want?

Once the source is discovered, we can get to work on a process of change. I don’t offer magic tricks, although sometimes a simple change in interpretation or behavior can produce magical results. Real change has its own pace, depending on your readiness to do the work.

Real change is possible.

Tools I use.

Every person and firm is unique. I’ve developed a substantial suite of tools to aid in adult development, and have access to many models created by others. I use a variety of diagnostic tools to help you see yourself more clearly. It’s important to lead from your strengths (your forehand), while also being aware of the habitual patterns and choices that are causing your conditions (your backhand).  These include the Five Factors model based on common descriptors of personality; a personal psychograph of your lines of development; a sentence completion test to determine your level of adult development; and a quadratic assessment to determine your ‘home perspective’ which is the lens through which you habitually view the world. I also offer an assessment of the types of people you are drawn to (this might need an update if your having relationship problems), and a values assessment that will help you know why you do or don’t fit in to your cultural surround. I can diagnose the level of complexity that you are able to handle and enjoy without becoming bored or overwhelmed. I use high quality maps of adult development, and have my own proprietary process of bringing a new self into the world. These are just a few of the tools available to you. Tool work is fast, interesting and fun.  The self-awareness this generates will make you safer to be yourself, and also make things safer for everyone around you.

The goal of this work is to see your direction of personal evolution—a path forward that moves from where you are to someplace better.  Each path of evolution is unique, and you need to see clearly before you can walk it.

Together we'll identify what it is you really want to do, and how to make it happen without blowing up your career.

 

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Who I am.

As a coach I bring experience as an attorney who has practiced over an extended career in many different contexts. These include a large firm, a litigation boutique where I was a partner, experience as a mediator and arbitrator in more than 3,000 cases, and as a professional trainer of other lawyers.

I’ve had a passion for personal development all of my life. My work has led me to explore, in depth, both ancient and modern approaches to the human possibility. These include the maps and methods used by the great spiritual and wisdom traditions of the world both east and west; by modern psychology; by the best executive coaches in the world; by integral philosophy; and by my own process of inquiry. During the last decade, it's been my privilege to have a ring-side seat to innovative thinking at a center for personal development that I co-founded in Boulder, Colorado, where I developed my training materials and coaching process. Our center drew people from around the globe for seminars and retreats.

I am a tireless reader of big books, and the author of my own award-winning novel.

My wife Mary and I have residences in Boulder, Colorado and in Dallas.  We have three grown children, and a little white dog named Tinker Bell.

 

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My Commitment, Rates and Guarantee.

I take my commitment to you seriously. After all, we are handling the most valuable things you have—your precious life energy, your career, the use of your free will, your enabling relationships, and the creation of the life conditions in which your potential is going to unfold. The cost of my services are reasonable professional rates commensurate with experience, typically a fixed fee per month. You should expect to pay what you would charge a client that requires your full attention. The amount will be determined when we agree on the goals of the engagement, expected travel, whether we are doing individual or group work, and the time involved.  The minimum engagement is three months. I offer a complete and unconditional money-back guarantee within the first month if I don’t deliver to your satisfaction. Refunds of the first month’s advance are issued upon return of the materials and protocols I send you. After that, we’re both in it to win it.

All private coaching arrangements include, at no additional charge, the entire suite of developmental tools and processes we offer in our courses to the broader professional public.  Once you are a private client, you’re behind the red rope, in the inner circle, and I don’t upsell anything. If you want to work with me privately and believe you can’t afford it, please apply and we can discuss other ways I might be able to help you.

Where Do We Begin?

We begin right where you are, with no other conditions. Simply fill out an application, and we can proceed from there.  You will be receiving a set of confidential questions which should take 10 minutes or less to answer, which will help determine whether we are a fit.  After reviewing your application, you'll get an email or phone call from my assistant setting up a time for us to have a face to face call.

My promise to you is this: together we will create a new environment where most of the problems you are now facing will be solved or disappear.  You will get to a new level where you see more, create more, feel better, and find yourself being looked to by your children, significant others, colleagues and friends as an example of what they would like to be.  You will move from competent to creative, and from creative to a causal force in your culture. I think you will find yourself facing a vastly more interesting set of challenges than the problems that confront you today.

To find out more about whether you are a candidate for this work, simply fill out an application.