Sometimes you’re just not ready until you’re ready. Yes, Steve Chandler and I have written a new book together. It’s called The Leader and The Coach—The Art of Humanity in Leadership. And, yes, we believe it is timely, readable, and has at least one “nugget” for every leader and coach to discover and use right away.
The book is written from the perspective of a leader (me) and a coach (Steve). It wasn’t entirely out of the blue that we came to this: Steve has actually been my coach for over 12 years, and we have a lifetime coaching deal. For it to stop, one of us has to fully “stop.” (And then we’ll see what happens next.) For my part, I have lived and worked in leadership roles for most of my life and career to date.
As with most of our work together, this creative project has not been without its challenges. Being at the top of one’s game in the context of an extended co-creation effort requires energy and commitment—and good health. Steve has been challenged with some (non-life threatening) health issues since we started this book last year. Thankfully, now recovered. It was extra challenging for him to work at the pace he is accustomed, and patience is not first on my list of virtues. He has persevered and we finished (what I believe is) a good piece of work as a leadership book relevant for “right now.”
When we work on a creative project together (this was our sixth) it isn’t just about the task at hand. Steve gets tuned into me and somehow, divines what I need to get to the next, best, version of myself. In the course of our work on The Leader and The Coach, Steve showed me a path that has opened the way for a great rest of life for me. He didn’t sell me on it. He just offered some “things to consider.”
We have had many conversations while writing The Leader & The Coach, all of them with time spent on, let’s call it, the “bigger picture.” Over the course of the last eight months, Steve sent books to me: Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright, In Search of Wisdom by Matthieu Ricard and others, Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman, The Inside-Out Revolution by Michael Neill, The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, Conscious by Annaka Harris, The Science of Enlightenment by Shinzen Young, Is This a Dream? by Anoop Kumar, and Awakening to the Dream by Leo Hartong, among others. He also introduced me to Rupert Spira, Bernardo Kastrup, Tom Chi, Loch Kelly, and more via YouTube videos and other media.
Without going too far into the “master class” that this process was–alongside our book project–with Steve’s subtle introduction and my own work and interest, I am deeply and happily exploring the nature of non-dualism—having touched on many other pathways to self-realization along the way. He always knew the step that was necessary to prepare for the next one and never pushed. [More about non-dualism another time, as there is no suitable sound-bite description for this context. Here is the best, brief introduction I have found: https://rupertspira.com/non-duality/introduction-to-non-duality **
So, even is his role as my co-author on The Leader and The Coach, Steve never stopped seeing me as a person he was committed to coaching to be the best I could be. And this significant book project, was one of many of his other creative projects, podcasts, coaching clinics, and coaching his other clients.
If there is a coach who is (and should be) the voice of The Coach in The Leader and The Coach—it is Steve Chandler. Happily for me (and I am sure for you), my co-author and lifetime coach is that voice.
~Will Keiper, co-author (with Steve Chandler) of The Leader and The Coach—The Art of Humanity in Leadership
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Credit: This is a blog post by Will Keiper at www.theleaderandthecoach.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/willkeiper/
**Non-duality is the recognition that underlying the multiplicity and diversity of experience there is a single, infinite and indivisible reality, whose nature is pure consciousness, from which all objects and selves derive their apparently independent existence. The recognition of this reality is not only the source of lasting happiness within all people; it is the foundation of peace between individuals, communities and nations, and it must be the basis for any sustainable relationship with the environment. ~Rupert Spira
