What is up everyone this is Alex Lieberman co-founder and CEO of Morning Brew welcome back to founders journal my personal audio diary where I give you the business builder the tools you need to think better in order to build better whether that's building a business a team or new product I've said it since day one and I'm going to say it again founders journal should feel like this trustworthy friend and personal Sherpa who helps guide you

as you embark on your individual journey of building your business but founders journal should be just one tool in your toolkit to guide you as you build another tool that has gained prominence and become less taboo over the last few years is professional coaching some people call it executive coaching some people called coaching I called it professional coaching and some people compare coaching to therapy others assume it's only reserved for top level executives I believe in

that coaching is something that every professional should have access to and should seriously consider trying out this week I had my first executive coaching session ever and I thought it'd be helpful to share what this experience was like for me and what my coach and I spoke about let's hop into it

On Monday, I had my first bi-monthly zoom call with Ryan, my new executive coach.

Honestly, I even hate using the word executive coach because it perpetuates this idea that you have

to be an executive to do it. So I'm just going to call him my coach. Given that Ryan and I already

knew each other prior to coaching, we didn't start the session with these formal introductions or

the types of pleasantries you'd share in a new relationship, we dove right in. We got into chatting

and started to hone in on some of the themes that were most nagging at me professionally and

personally. And it's interesting because I found a lot of the things that affect me professionally

and my professional work are the same sorts of beliefs that I have as an individual that affect

me personally. Similar to my therapist, which as a lot of founders, journals, listeners know,

I also see on, you know, a bi-weekly or monthly basis, I noticed that Ryan asked a lot of questions

to get the full picture of my experiences. He was voraciously taking down notes as I was talking

and he was so clearly actively listening. I'm not sure if you've taken the time to identify

what active listening looks like, but for me, I can tell when someone's active listening

because they're reacting to your body language and they aren't trying to immediately chime in

after you're done speaking. I noticed that from the beginning every time I would say something,

I would stop and at first I felt like this awkward pause for 10 seconds where he was waiting to see

if I was done and I realized it was one because he knew his default wasn't to just start speaking,

but he was also processing the information that I had just talked about. So I'm going to take you

through the different things we spoke about in our first session. The first topic was this concept

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