Opportunity
Braedon had enjoyed a ten-year run as the Managing Partner of a commercial real estate development company that successfully completed projects throughout the country. Most of the projects were predictably challenging, but his team managed to complete them using sophisticated financing structures that ultimately secured fair compensation for their work.
A few years ago, Braedon was enthusiastically engaged by a group of business owners seeking guidance for a complex property acquisition and development opportunity. After nearly two years of diligent work and a dozen self-funded, cross-country trips, the client ultimately chose not to execute on the project. Despite numerous assurances that Braedon and his office would be “made whole,” the client eventually stopped all communication.
At that point, Braedon knew he had to approach his professional and personal life differently. He challenged himself to dismantle his “normal” way of doing things and learn as much as he could to create a major change in how he operated—so that he could become a better business owner, leader, and person.
Challenge
As Braedon began this new journey of self-discovery, he connected with the simple but powerful idea that he needed to rewire his thinking and develop a more mindful, holistic, and solution-oriented approach rather than continuing to settle for the same unsatisfying way of working simply because it was familiar and easy.
Braedon knew he had the courage to change and the willingness to learn, but he needed accountability and a method and source of content that would help him do so. By chance, he soon discovered VIM Executive Coaching and made the call to inquire about coaching.
The singular decision to work with a VIM coach—and the commitment Braedon made to the process—made all the difference in designing a new path toward a more authentic life grounded in mindfulness and success.
Braedon worked with his coach twice a month and began working through the VIM curriculum. They began with the foundational concepts of Honesty, Fear, Emotional Boundaries, and Accessibility. These topics helped him integrate conscious and subconscious thinking in pursuit of greater self-awareness.
As they progressed through the curriculum, they explored Acceptance, Justification, and Control. As the meaning and significance of these concepts became clearer to Braedon, his coach encouraged and challenged him to expand his understanding of his inner self and continue exploring areas he had previously left unexamined.
Having uncovered aspects of himself that he knew needed to be acknowledged and understood, Braedon was then prepared for more in-depth conversations about Communication, Responsibility, and, Trust.
By this point in the journey, Braedon recognized that the work he had completed had begun to prepare him to become the newer and more intentional version of himself that he had been seeking when the journey began.
Transformation
Braedon became a more confident yet equally compassionate “seer” of the people in his life. He embraced a new ability to engage with others, especially his team members and clients, with greater vision, empathy, and understanding. He also realized he had arrived at a very special destination—not simply at the end of a coaching program, but at the beginning of a fundamentally different way of approaching his life and work.
What Changed Everything
While working through the topics of Commitment, Braedon simultaneously began making decisions about not only the people with whom he chose to work, but also the way in which he would work with them going forward.
He incorporated the extensive content and principles of the program into a new foundation for his professional life. He significantly changed the way he approached new clients and ultimately developed a more intentional and lasting approach to compensation—one that reflected his new mindful and purposeful way of working with others.
The result was a fundamental shift in the way Braedon viewed his business relationships, his work, and his own definition of success.
Results
The results of Braedon’s illuminating two-year mindfulness executive coaching journey have far exceeded what he originally set out to accomplish.
In addition to learning more about himself and developing the courage to change, Braedon made a corresponding commitment to himself to remain on the new course he had charted with his coach.
Although he now takes on fewer new clients and assignments, Braedon has chosen to become an investor and stakeholder in the newer, more highly qualified clients with whom he works. By becoming a stakeholder with his clients, he eliminates risk and now creates more lucrative, predictable revenue streams to his firm.
This new mindset allows him the freedom to cultivate more engaging, purposeful, and longer-lasting relationships while creating greater alignment between his professional work and his personal values.
Braedon challenged himself to undertake this journey of transformation—and remains deeply and authentically grateful that he did.