When my client D first contacted me for a coaching session, he told me he needed help at work. He wasn’t getting along with his direct boss and was thinking about quitting his 7-year position. During our first session, the first thing I did was build rapport. It means getting to know each other, get some context, make the client feel comfortable and at ease, in order for the client to open up and confide. After building rapport, I like to go straight to the point: “what can I do for you? how can I help?”

D immediately jumped in: “I can’t stand my direct boss! I want to quit.” So before getting lost and sidetracked by gossipy-details, such as “how come? what did he do? ”

I asked D how long he had been under this direct boss (knowing D had been in this job position for the past 7 years, given the rapport/context we built in the beginning) and how his job position was before working under this infamous direct boss. Hearing him out and listening, I noticed that D had dealt with female direct bosses before and wasn’t faced with such issues. So, I decided to dig a little deeper and asked D how he felt around male counterparts in general: his brother, his father, his male friends. Turns out, I noticed, that D had boundary issues with all of them but mostly with work-related male counterparts (boss, superior, directors). I was curious regarding this discovery, so I dug a little deeper. We finally came to the point where it all started: a very strict, catholic, all boy school, run by men, mostly priests during the 80’s; I’m emphasizing the 80’s because back then, all-boy catholic schools were different from today’s catholic schools.

Getting to the bottom of this, D realized a few things:

A) That he had boundary issues. He had a hard time saying no, putting his foot down and value himself when faced with a male superior.  

B) That this issue started from when he was 6 years old and sent to an all-boy catholic school.

C) That by realizing this and acknowledging it, he was able to relativize his issues at work.

D) That now we can come up with an action plan on how to tackle this issue and overcome it together in our next coaching sessions.

Sometimes one gets in ones’ own way. Sometimes one is blinded by overwhelm and frustration. Sometimes a shift in perspective is all one needs to think out of the box, in order to reconnect and redirect. Sometimes all it takes is one coaching session to get that perspective. What follows is an action plan, which leads to self-worth, self-improvement and peace of mind. And that’s all one can wish for as a Coach. Godspeed D, you’re a rockstar!