Easier

60 Ways to Make Your Work Life Work for You

Chris Westfall

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781119834571
• eBook ISBN: 9781119834595
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Workplace Culture

Unlock your potential with practical strategies for simplifying your biggest challenges

A frustrated client hires a coach. He's looking for answers. Direction. And clarity. He wants to leave his job but can't find the self-confidence to do so. Should he stick it out? Is entrepreneurship a good idea? Little does he know, he's about to be fired in just five days.

Inside Easier: 60 Ways to Make Your Work Life Work for You, a self-leadership inquiry becomes a story of transformation—and powerful universal discovery. Can a single conversation change your life?

Easier is the hold-your-handbook on coaching, leadership, and resilience. The story offers leadership insights on creating the future of work, finding connection and guidance, and uncovering 60 ways to make everything—yes, everything— easier. For team players, and team leaders, and everyone in between, see how self-leadership creates lasting and powerful change, in the midst of the most difficult career challenges.

In this book, you'll discover:

• How to pivot from "How do I get through this?" to "What can I get from this?"
• How to access innovation and empathy, for yourself and others, regardless of your circumstances—and find true personal freedom
• How resilience and adaptability are available to anyone, anytime

Who doesn't want to make things easier? Tap into peak performance, by understanding that you don't have to go it alone. The coaching conversation begins with a common concern and leads to a reimagined future of work, because everything in life can be made easier —if you just know where to look.

“I need you to be lazy,” the Coach said.

Driving through the neighborhoods of manicured lawns, the Client had peered only at the road right in front of him. His attitude, regarding the interior of the car, the nearby traffic, or the amount of gas in his tank, was not lazy. He was not glancing at the palm trees that bordered the lawns. He did not take shortcuts. He did not wander off of his chosen path in a lazy manner. The four-hour drive had made his imagination work harder than the engine, leaving him wondering if he would find any real answers in the conversation ahead. The leather on the driver's seat was comfortable, but he was not. Because he was never, ever lazy.

Intent on his destination, he turned. But only when the GPS said so. He knew, deep down, that the navigation would reroute if he made a wrong move. But he didn't want to risk it.

On the drive, the Client was preoccupied with two objectives: getting somewhere and leaving the past behind. The first half of his plan was going well. Gripping the wheel tightly, he found himself on a broad residential boulevard. He had reached the Coach's street.

He still managed to drive past the address. He was lost in thought. Recalculating, he got there.

“Welcome,” the Coach had said, and opened the front door. The Client and Coach exchanged greetings and walked through the house. They passed through two French doors and entered a large outdoor patio.

The Coach sat cross-legged on the Client's right. Underneath the ceiling fans, the two men had planted themselves at a right angle to each other, on overstuffed neutral-colored chairs. These were the kind of outdoor seats where you could spend an hour or two and not notice the time passing.

Beyond the open doors on the patio, the lush green backyard gave way to some slight rolling hills in the distance. Three brightly colored noodles bobbed against the side of the pool. A large rock formation, sort of like an elaborate four-foot-high kitchen backsplash, snaked around part of the backyard. The rock formation provided a small waterfall for the pool. Elegant tin roofs from neighboring houses floated above tightly trimmed hedges. Further to the south, the gray shadow of office buildings and construction cranes punctuated the landscape. Austin's skyline sat on the horizon like fingers on a hand.

The Client had been “coached” before. Mostly accountability stuff and goal-setting junk that lived somewhere between grit, willpower, and getting over yourself. The corporate coaching felt like having another manager in his life, with weekly meetings designed to help him to be all that he could be. He wasn't sure if it was a punishment or opportunity. Often it felt like both. He didn't want to sign up for that ride again.

Lazy seemed like a terrible idea.

He already saw himself as a mistake that needed to be corrected. A plan that failed because he failed to plan. Even when things went right, he could have and should have done more. He had risen in his career by being hard on himself. That pressure gave him an edge, kept him sharp, made him want more than the next guy. Nobody had ever told him to be lazy.

The suggestion was a loud fart in an elevator. He didn't appreciate the context, the source, or the repercussions. He looked down at the sweat clinging to the outside of his iced tea glass. His lips tightened and his teeth clenched. He looked at the Coach.

Back at headquarters, the Client's division was in the toilet. He had separated himself from the office by over 200 miles, but he carried blame and regret with him everywhere he went. He anguished over every detail, haunted by negative results. His business development job focused on acquisitions and growth. But the company hadn't even invested in any interesting technology in the last two years. He was, in his mind, completely ineffective.

He wanted control. Control and confidence. So he could do what needed to be done. He wanted out of the death spiral that had gripped his organization. He wanted freedom. Options. A new perspective. Not a lazy one.

He was here to make a change. Find a fresh start. The numbers weren't working. But, by God, he was. Even now, far from his office, he was still unable to leave work behind.

The division was tanking. He wanted to quit his job. He needed answers.

Lazy wasn't one of them.

He needed to fix a broken situation. He didn't need to sit here trying to fix a broken man.

He stared at the condensation on the glass of tea. He was going to resign in the next few months, if he could get this Coach to help him to find the courage to do so.

He didn't know he would be fired in five days.

Coaching was a fool's errand, he reasoned. Not today, not with this guy, not with me. No way.

Another error needed to be corrected.

Lazy? No, thank you.

The Client stood up. “I've made a mistake,” he said. “I'm … I'm not doing this right now.”

The Client turned, stepped around the chairs, and walked back into the house. The front door opened and closed. The Client was gone.

Twenty-six seconds later, there was a quick double-knock on the front door, and it swung open. “Sorry, I forgot my cell phone,” the Client half-shouted, as he reentered the house. The Coach was standing three feet away from the swinging door. He was holding the cell phone in his outstretched hand.

The Coach wore tan jeans and leather boots, a charcoal T-shirt, and a black watch with some heft to it. He was smiling, emphasizing the lines around his eyes. Grinning, actually. The Client took back his phone and began to apologize.

“I'm sorry,” he said. What he said next spun out of him like a fork in a garbage disposal.

“I'm sorry I left like that; I just have a lot of obligations and a lot of things that I need to do – lots of stuff on my mind that's really pulling me out of our work and this conversation. Even though when I made the appointment it seemed like a good idea, I am not really in a place where I can focus on myself right now, because I just … well… . Uh, I can't seem to … yeah. What it really is is just something that, uh, half the time I don't even know myself, but I just feel like I can't really be here right now. I hope you understand and again I am really sorry. I also have to say that I don't understand where the hell you were going with that ‘lazy’ remark and I'm just not in a headspace where I can really unpack that, so I think it's best if I just leave.”

The Coach chose his next words carefully. “There's no need to apologize. You have to do what's right for you. I support that. I'm here to support you. Whatever shape that takes is A-OK with me. I get it. Deadlines. Details. Obligations. I've been there myself, more than once. But before you go, why don't we just drink one glass of tea? One glass. Let's relax together, for a minute. And if you don't like the tea, or the conversation, then we can reschedule or whatever we need to do. No obligations. No pressure. It's just a conversation, right?

“And you never have to apologize,” the Coach continued, hoping that those words landed. He was sharing more than just a courtesy. “Ever. Here, there are no mistakes. Only choices. And whatever they are, I respect your choices. You wanna sit back down?” he asked. “The tea is pretty good.”

The men walked back out to the patio. They sat in silence.

The Client noticed a row of Italian cypress trees, standing like 40-foot-tall soldiers, waiting for battle. Perched in the blue sky, white cirrus clouds floated above the pointed green trees like a bunch of lazy hippies. Lucky bastards.

He turned to the Coach. “Nothing is easy for me,” he said, apropos of nothing and yet somehow covering everything.

He continued, “Hard work is all I've known. If I'm lazy, how can I move forward in my life and in my career and … and … well, how is being lazy going to help?”

“People think of lazy as an activity, like eating potato chips and watching Netflix. That's ‘lazy,’” the Coach said, uncrossing his legs. “And you're right – as an activity, ‘lazy’ is a horrible place if you want to get anything done. Other than binge-watching a show or growing your waistline, being lazy seems like a strategy for getting nothing done. We all know that being lazy is the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Praise for Easier
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Chapter 1: The Arrival
• Chapter 2: The Realization
• Chapter 3: A Commitment Emerges
• Chapter 4: A Daring Rescue
• Chapter 5: A New Identity
• Chapter 6: A Bold Plan
• Chapter 7: Coming Back Home
• Chapter 8: Discoveries
• Chapter 9: The Departure
• Chapter 10: The Lost Weekend
• Chapter 11: Calling The Police
• Chapter 12: The Hail Mary
• Chapter 13: To the Gallows
• Chapter 14: Life After Death
• Chapter 15: Financial Matters
• Chapter 16: Crushing Your Goals
• Chapter 17: Creating The Future
• Chapter 18: Under The Blue Sky
• Epilogue
• Recommended Reading
• About the Author
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• End User License Agreement