Top Executive Coaching with Tony Mayo

One of my favorite radio programs and podcasts is the non-denominational, non-doctrinaire Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett. Krista interviews deep thinkers with important ideas about the essential human experiences of awe, eternity, and community. Every show leads me to reflect deeply and, very often, to live a happier, more involved life. I consider it one of the most nurturing practices of my continual development as an executive coach.

A recent guest was Esther Sternberg, Ph.D., an expert on immunology and stress. She relates the remarkable history of stress’s role in heath and healing. It seem that every culture has always known that emotional and physical stressors contribute to

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I often use the story below at the beginning of executive coaching engagements, particularly when coaching groups. These executives, especially my CEO executive coaching clients, have achieved a great deal by demanding and producing rapid results. Many results, however, require extraordinary diligence and patience. This “Bamboo Story” is a useful metaphor for individuals and teams out to produce significant and enduring new opportunities. [A free, single-page version of this executive coaching story is availabe by clicking here.]

A certain remarkable species of bamboo is cultivated in Asia. The root system is so complex that the farmer must water, fertilize, and weed for five years before the first shoot emerges from the ground. Imagine how this farmer must look to her neighbors: “Hey, how is your dirt crop coming along?” Season after season she sees others harvesting, eating, and selling their produce, while she labors for no visible result.

Once the root system is fully developed the first shoots emerge and the plants grow as high as 90 feet in a few weeks. The bamboo grows so quickly you can hear the rustle as the leaves spread. As anyone who has tried to remove a stand of bamboo knows, good luck stopping such growth once strong roots are established.

How do you tend to your root system?

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Click here to download free, printable poster of this story.

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For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin — real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin.

At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.

–Attributed to Alfred D. Souza

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Abraham Lincoln called it his melancholia. Winston Churchill had “black dog days.” Today, we refer to it as depression.

Recently, I noticed that I was lethargic, frequently irritated, and found most thoughts of the future unappealing. At first, I was sure the circumstances were the cause. If you look closely enough at

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The Essential Gandhi:
An Anthology of his Writings on

his Life, Work, and Ideas

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by Mahatma Gandhi

or Mohandas K. Gandhi
Louis Fisher, Editor

[Items in square brackets are by Tony Mayo.]

{Items in fancy brackets are by the editor, Louis Fisher.}

p. 15 [As a boy, Gandhi confessed a petty theft to his father and was forgiven.] This was for me an object lesson in Ahimsa [Love and Non-Violence]. Then I could read in it nothing more than a father’s love but today I know that it was pure Ahimsa. When such Ahimsa becomes all-embracing it transforms everything it touches. There is no limit to its power.

This sort of sublime forgiveness was not natural to my father. I had thought he would be angry, say hard things and strike his forehead. But he was so wonderfully peaceful and I believe this was due to

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Tony is an excellent executive coach. Both in sales training and executive coaching programs, he has been a committed listener: his extensive experience in managing, leadership and communications makes him a reliable and credible source for strategic planning, execution, and tactical advice.

–Ron Dimon

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Read Ron Dimon’s
letter about
Tony’s coaching

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→ My first podcast!!! ←

Your disposition in this moment constrains the actions you might take in the next. If you are sitting at a desk you cannot immediately leap forward. If you are angry, you are not able to gently embrace your antagonist. If you are speaking loudly and quickly, you cannot listen to subtle cues.

There is a place from which the broadest variety of actions is possible: the

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Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something.

The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into

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I consider Tony Mayo the CEO’s CEO. Tony is the Chairman of my Vistage group and with his insight and coaching has tutored me in developing my leadership abilities and showed me how to run our business profitably while not letting the business run me. Since Tony has been a keen advisor to Glass Distributors Inc., I lean on his tremendous wisdom and knowledge for many of our key business decisions. Tony is a tremendous blessing for me and GDI.

Steve Bouchard, President
Glass Distributors Inc.

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To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.
–Pearl S. Buck

To My Daughters With Love

By Pearl S. Buck

See also Gandhi on service.

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