Doing nothing can be the best preparation

I’m writing this one day early, so when this post goes out at 8 am UK time today, I will be taking a walk around a provincial town in England prior to a three-hour meeting with a leadership client I see each month in their home town. Though this time I am getting the train up the night before and staying in a convenient hotel across the street from the café we will meet at, often we meet at lunchtime and I get the train up that morning, meet, then get the train back, making it around a twelve-hour day in order to have a three-hour meeting. What do I fill all that time with, particularly the four or so hours in the morning en route to my meeting?

Nothing.

Doing nothing can be the best preparation. Being rested and relaxed enables me to be absolutely present and able to listen deeply to my client.

So, on that long train journey, surrounded often by people tapping away on their laptops etc, I wouldn’t even bring mine. Instead, I’d bring one or two books and “slow read” a chapter or two from each (currently “slow reading” some Carlo Rovelli, enjoying his exquisite prose, for example).

Today, though, I will have taken the train up the evening before, so I will simply get up early and go for a walk. No phone, no headphones, just walking. At some stage on the walk, my mind will turn to my most recent conversations with that client and bring them forward into the edges of my active consciousness for when I walk into the café to meet them.

Take a look at how you work. Do you have time to prepare for your client meetings by “doing nothing” ?

If my past experience is anything to go by, the honest answer for all but a very few is “no”.

So, let me share my story as to how I got to this place, as I wasn’t always someone to “Do Nothing” to prepare for meetings, but I made a conscious choice to the way I work over six years ago.

Consciously switching from working “flat out” to having the space to “Do Nothing” as preparation

For the first number of years of my coaching career, I focussed on business coaching, helping businesses move forwards. Typically I would personally lead at least ten clients each month, often meeting them every week, alongside which I was leading and building coaching a business with multiple coaches each running a number of clients, often supporting the coaches and sometimes their clients too. I was then asked to also take on the role of CEO of the global business coaching company, so supporting countries and major clients was added to the list.

What that meant was that I was switching in and out of meetings (in person and on video) and calls with rarely more than a minute or two in between, typically about seventy hours a week and across time zones. I was good at what I did, but it was hectic and “doing nothing” was never an option. I would all too commonly jump off one call and onto another with only seconds in between them! I made it work, but it did not feel optimal for me or my clients.

However, all along the way, I had worked out that my “sweet spot” in coaching, the space I both most enjoyed and was best suited to, was working 1:1 with senior leaders in businesses and organisations.

As I prepared to move to London in 2017, this was an opportunity to carefully assess the way I wanted to do my work moving forward. In this careful assessment, I recognised that if I wanted to focus in on work with the most senior leaders, people who are brilliant and highly accomplished but also rarely have time to “Do Nothing”, it would be vital that I was optimally prepared for when I actually met them. A story I played to myself was along the lines of:

“What if I had one meeting in a day in the early afternoon? What if I had no other work or meetings, what would I do with the rest of the day? I could start the day reading, then perhaps go and exercise, and finally perhaps walk an hour or more at a stroll across London to the meeting place rather than rush on public transport”.

This design stuck with me, most importantly as it felt that I could then arrive at the meeting with absolute presence and provide the highest possible value to my client.

I, therefore, went with this, over time only taking on 1:1 clients in senior leadership positions, as well as restricting the number of clients I would work with to six or fewer at any time.  Yes, from a commercial standpoint that means I charge more to each client than if I was filling every moment of every day with client meetings and building a business, but I need only a few clients at a time to see the value of a coach who truly gives them that extraordinary level of focus.

This change in my way of working has also had numerous spillover benefits, such as:

• I have now written nearly one million words on nearly two thousand daily posts on this site. It all started when meeting with various (very busy) clients and sharing ideas or stories I had read of or otherwise learned, ideas or stories that they could learn from and apply. When I asked if they had read the book, heard of the concept etc, they’d often not only say “no”, but also say “Tom, when would I have time for that?” and sometimes add “that is what you are here for!”. It then occurred to me that I could, over time, capture ideas and stories that could support my clients and other leaders, writing to share what I learn, and so here we are, nearly six years later.
• Having lots of spare time outside of client meetings allows me to “meet interesting people doing interesting things”, and I have met so many more people in the last few years than I would have been able to do unless I was “always active, never busy”. Meeting so many people of widely varying backgrounds, skill and expertise areas, areas of interest and focus, this has all had so many spinoffs.
• One spinoff from meeting people was that during the pandemic I also chose to launch a podcast, WhatComesNextLive, having conversations with people live, then capturing them on video and audio (podcast). Whilst I have felt to stop the weekly flow of this, there are over 100 podcasts in the library, each of which is full of learnings from fascinating guests.
• Another is the short series of mini podcasts recorded in the summer of 2021 and focussed on inspiring women on their career journeys. Do listen to these four extraordinary women and their amazing interviewer tell their stories on Elevating Leaders.
• Of course, doing so much “lateral learning” also has benefits for my clients. With only a maximum of six clients at a time, those clients are always “top of mind”, so when I meet someone, read something, or in any way learn a concept, or come up with an idea, sometimes I can “connect the dots” in ways that may add to the thinking of my clients.
• Finally, and something I love that I have time to do, I now do much more mentoring than ever before. From one-off video calls or meetings to longer-term relationships, I typically am mentoring quite a number of people in different ways. I love it. I love to add value, plus I always learn so much and am energised by my mentees.

In closing, from my teens through to around the age of 40 or so, I was always “flat out” and was known for getting a massive amount “done” in the time available. I have, however, totally transitioned to a “less is more”space. This may be right for you, it may not, but I hope you can see from my example that it can be possible.