Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Gerry Mattios was a junior level consultant at an international consulting firm based in London when he engaged me to be his coach. Four years later he has been promoted four times, is living in China and after growing with one firm for years recently moved to work for another  established multinational company in Beijing.

His story demonstrates how our program can be effective within an organization and how the principle of courage and the practice of being a visionary works within an institution.

Gerry originally did our One2One program beginning in the Spring of 2006 to help him clarify his vision and build confidence and then later did an advanced program which he completed in the Spring of 2008 . This second program supported him in developing his leadership skills while he continued to take action on his vision.  He paid for his programs out of his own pocket, investing in his own development rather than solely depending on his company’s leadership programs and gives the one-to-one coaching a lot (maybe too much) of the credit for his accomplishments. In addition to developing his career and moving to Asia, Gerry married and had his first child while we worked together. Our collaboration has been extremely rewarding for me and this morning, I interviewed him on skype to hear him reflect on how the experience working with a coach helped him.

Gerry had spent some time contemplating this before today and was able to give me a very succinct and thoughtful response. Here is his report on the 5 ways The Bright Livelihoods Method helped him:

1. Gave him confidence and a better understanding
of the value he brings to an organization.

2. Helped him reconcile his past family and work history in a way that gave him a deeper understanding of what he has accomplished in his life and how.

3. A clear long term career vision that included going to China, being involved with aviation, and having his work have a social service component.

4. A more positive outlook that gave him the courage to aggressively look for opportunities and communicate his aspirations to colleagues and bosses that were in a position to help him attain his goals.

5. Tools for visualizing a better future state and making it real.

Laurel Donnellan                                                                                                                             CEO                                                                                                                                                 Bright Livelihoods