Ashley Good « Coaching and Consulting

You’re a big picture thinker, an idea generator, and a visionary leader. You’re a risk-taker and a freedom lover. You make things happen. You stand out amongst the crowd. You shine brighter than most and always have. You’re a clear and articulate communicator and a masterful problem-solver. You’ve created your life by making your own rules or challenging other people’s rules. Freedom is one of your highest values and you have a knack for opening doors and getting things done.

Does this sound familiar to you? Me too, and I know that for each of these gifts, there’s a dark side.

As a big picture thinker, do you sometimes feel disconnected from your own vision, as if you’re observing the vision but it’s distant from you? Some days you might be full speed ahead and other days you might think “F*** it!” As a quantum thinker, do you resist the small, persistent and consistent, ‘mundane’ steps required to get from Point A to Point B or do you “procrastinate” only to find yourself impatient with your progress? Do you sometimes plunge into self-doubt or second-guess yourself, or feel stuck in ‘analysis paralysis’?

Believe me, I know.

Because you make things happen it can be challenging to hand over the reins to anyone else, and you might either micro-manage or simply do things yourself. While that might feel efficient, you end up draining valuable time and energy on tasks that someone else could be doing. The flip side is that in the pursuit of growth and expansion you may sacrifice some of the things you love to do because you “don’t have time” anymore and these things could be handled by someone else. The joy starts to leak out, like a slow tire puncture, even though you don’t notice it because it’s so subtle. Until you do.

And what about this? Does this sound familiar:

You have so many ideas. You’re always thinking and almost always ‘on’. You live more in your head than in your heart so it can be difficult to truly relax, enjoy ‘idle’ time and be authentically present to those around you. Holidays sound great but 3 days in and you’re getting itchy feet and ready to be back in the grind. Your mind is a high-speed thought train and being a masterful problem-solver means you sometimes create problems just to solve them (even though you might not admit it!). Truth is, you prefer to be “on” and you feel most alive and on purpose when you’re finding solutions to challenges.

I’ll tell you something else about your world. Let’s call it the elephant in the room:

You have a solid track record of success, your achievements on paper speak for themselves, you’ve proven your ‘worthiness’ and yet, underneath that successful exterior you have a deep underlying fear that each success is a one-off that you’ll never be able to repeat and people will eventually discover that you’re not as great as they thought you were. You’re afraid to fail, afraid to be found out as an imposter and deep down, you have a fear of disappointing people so you’re constantly striving to achieve the next thing. The questions “what next?”, “what if I can’t do it again?” and “what if I don’t meet expectations?” are on an endless mental carousal. Ultimately, it’s depleting and exhausting.

I very much understand this. Up until my 30s, my subconscious mantra was “if I bail before I fail then people will always have the illusion of my greatness and they will never discover how flawed and ordinary I really am.”

For over 25 years, I’ve been a successful manager, leader, consultant and coach. I was the Pan Regional Promotions Consultant for Asia Pacific at 20th Century Fox International. One of my proudest achievements was getting the attention of the two co-presidents of 20^th Century Fox Worldwide and proposing that they create a new role, for me. Not only did they receive my proposal but they went ahead and created the role, amidst budget cuts and a hiring freeze. I created the job that I wanted, and it was the only job of its kind throughout all of Asia Pacific. In fact, I’ve been doing that most of my life. Every role I ever had was completely above my pay grade, and it happened because I created it. In a career in marketing and creativity, I generated ideas that people thought were crazy, but actually generated millions of dollars for the organizations I worked for.

These days, I sometimes sit down with people much like me. I use my 25 years of leadership skills, 25 years of creativity, 25 years of business development, 25 years of bold and audacious requests making the impossible possible and opening doors in order to now challenge and expand people’s thinking. If that sounds interesting, you and I should talk.

Let’s talk

The anti-coaching coach for high achievers

Does this sound familiar?

Praise

Current offerings: