“I'm going to show you how to bend time,” the Coach said.
He was seated in front of an impossibly perfect Zoom background that the Client later discovered was real. Somehow the Coach had managed to get a soft-focus camera for Zoom calls in his home office. Behind him were two white orchids, framing two abstract paintings suffused with orange, blue, and brown hues. The entire scene was built atop a mid-century-modern credenza, next to a silver-gray chair that appeared stolen from Don Draper's office. The overall effect was something you might see in a TV studio, if a network produced a show called “In the Coach's Office” and filmed it entirely in Zoom.
The Client began with timelines. Time was a concern for him: it always seemed to be running out.
The time it would take for his severance to expire. How much time he would need to sign and return the documents. How much time it might take to launch his business, he said, alluding to his future goals. “Because time is money,” he told the Coach.
The Coach wanted to introduce a different perspective – one that didn't have a deadline attached. “What if there were many more knobs to turn and levers to pull, outside of these financial possibilities?” the Coach replied. The Client was stressed out. He wasn't going to fall for the Jedi ...
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