Hi, I hope you’re doing well. Things are pretty quiet around here, so I’m just sitting around, reading Dostoyevsky, getting my nails done. You know, same-ol’-same-ol’.
The Times had a piece on gratitude on Sunday, and I wrote a post on Thanksgiving last year (CL #14) that was probably the most popular thing I’ve ever written, judging by the responses I received. I think it becomes ever more important to bring to mind the things that we are grateful for—I write this in front of my new gas fireplace, since my old one was destroyed, along with many other of our appliances, when our house was struck by lightning last summer. Apparently, the house nearly blew up when the fire came close to burning through the gas line, so I am grateful for my house, my family, and my life. (You might also want to read this post on luck—CL #46, and the self-assessment.) We are lucky.
I believe I owe many thanks to many people, so here goes. First, in the early summer I asked for a couple of things. I asked readers of the Coaching Letter to spread the word to others—the Coaching Letter is one of the ways in which we try to get to get the word out about the Center and the work we do, so if you find it useful it helps us if you encourage others to sign up. And many of you must have done exactly that, because I got a boatload of requests to sign up over the summer. So thank you for that. And if there are other people that you think would benefit, or just be interested, please forward this email so that they can click here to sign up. Thank you!
Also, I asked for feedback about the Coaching Letter, and I received multiple responses to that too, and they were extremely helpful. I learned that there is life for the Coaching Letter beyond the people on the mailing list, and that many people forward it to others to start a conversation. I learned that some of you take the book recommendations extremely seriously, so I am more aware of that than I was. I learned that you like the links to other things to read and listen to, but sometimes they send you down a rabbit hole and sometimes they break up the flow of the letter. So I am trying to be more discriminating about the links that I include, and I have tried to bunch them more towards the end of the letter. And I learned that you don’t care when I send them, because in the life of a busy professional there is no predictable “good time”. Thank you for the feedback! Keep it coming.
I learned that you wanted access to previous Coaching Letters. As a result, you can now access them here. Feel free to use them as meets your needs, please just keep my name, email and the Center attached to them. And if you have the time to email me and let me know how you’re using them, that would be great. Thank you.
I cannot end a Thanksgiving letter without expressing how amazed and thankful I am to get to work with so many wonderful people. And how grateful I am for my family—some of whom I am actually related to.
Someone told me recently that the Coaching Letter was changing the conversation in the state. I have no idea whether that is actually true or not, but it was both one of the biggest compliments I have ever received and completely mind-blowing. So now I am super-aware of what it is I’m trying to do and how many people are receiving this letter and how it can be more useful to you. I am deeply grateful to you for engaging in this collective conversation, or perhaps it’s multiple small ones, and I hope you continue to find the Coaching Letter helpful but also fun to read. I know this is beginning to turn into an Emmys speech, so can I just say, I love you all.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
