My Values
If you’re meeting me for the first time, my values offer a quick-but-meaningful intro to who I am as a coach and how I orient and operate my practice.
If we’ve worked together for a while and you’re just seeing these values for the first time, I’d welcome your reactions on which values I am manifesting fully in our work together and which (if any) I could be expressing more effectively.
I advise startup leaders that values should be memorable and should inform a company’s decisions --- and I hold myself to those standards. I crafted these values to hold rich meaning for me, and I refine their descriptions over time to make sure the meaning persists. I also call on these values when I need to make decisions about who or how to coach; what to create next; what to prioritize and what to set aside.
My Values:
1 - Help That (Actually) Helps
2- Wisdom From Anywhere
3 - Be Generative
4 - Loving Confrontation
5 - Strive For Connection
What My Values Mean:
#1 - Help That (Actually) Helps - There is a saying in the coaching world that “Not all help helps.” And it refers to those moments when we have helping intentions but unhelpful impact. This value reminds me to judge my coaching, my content and my creations on how helpful they are in impact. For example: I can write an epic blog post that is chock full of “helpful”l, but if it’s so long that clients get overwhelmed and don’t finish reading---then it’s not actually helpful. To align myself with this value I routinely ask: Does this actually help my clients? How can it be more helpful? (where “helpful” might mean: shorter; better researched; simpler process; more interactive; clearer applications and how-tos; different timing; or something else...)
#2 - Wisdom From Anywhere - Wisdom relies on knowledge and experience, but it isn’t internalized as wisdom until you reflect and accept it not just conceptually (i.e., something you read or heard) but also at the layer of your “psychological logic” (i.e., something you have lived and experienced). I can and do gather knowledge from academic research of course, but I also collect it from sources ranging from mediocre tv shows to Jesuit philosophy to the poignant and profound things my kids say. The opportunities to generate wisdom are broad and wide-ranging, so you have to stay alert. You never know when some profound wisdom is going to invite you in.
#3 - Be Generative - I am a coach who loves to create, and I intentionally spend hours every week in a generative mode of mind. Sometimes I’m creating brand new content. Other times I’m updating old material that I can re-deliver back to my clients at a different moment or in a different package. I build new coaching offerings, relentlessly and reflexively. I’m always scanning for: How could this be better? What could I create here? What would help the next generation of startup leaders truly thrive?
I was raised in the heart of Silicon Valley (true story! my childhood home at 2128 Sand Hill Rd is where Khosla Ventures stands today) and I once described this incessant drive of mine to create something better as “all that Palo Alto sunshine in my bloodstream.” It’s part of why I coach founders and startup leaders because, in their own ways, they are generative souls who are all working their asses off to make something better.
#4 - Loving Confrontation - Coaching is a caring art. But it’s a specific flavor of caring that I usually refer to as nurturing: caring that encourages growth and development. Care alone can just be about feeling concern and kindness, but I care in a way where I channel that care to help you to grow.
I love my clients. It’s a tender feeling, but it’s not squishy or soft. In fact, I believe it’s a hard requirement to coach --- in order to get curious; to create a space that feels safe; to engage in inquiry; to show up solid when your client feels shaky--you have to love ‘em. And I love my clients enough to confront them: To say the thing no one else is saying. To ask the question they’re too afraid to ask. To challenge the belief that has them trapped. And to open their eyes to everything in their blind spot.
We tend to associate “confrontation” with arguments or fighting - not with love. But I see them as two sides of the same coin. I bring that spirit of loving confrontation to every one I coach, every group I facilitate, and every thing I write.
#5 - Strive For Connection - I have been coaching for over a decade and over that time I have realized that the core need at the heart of all my work is the loneliness and isolation that founders & startup leaders can experience as they are trying to grow their teams and companies. I want to be an antidote to that loneliness and isolation: as a coach who is in their corner; as a writer who writes content that provides emotional validation; and as a convener who brings people together in T-groups and on Fridays.
I strive to create intimacy and connection in everything I do.
Anamaria
